UC Berkeley

This thesis presents numerical calculations designed to understand aspects of the feeding of, and feedback from, super-massive black holes at the centers of galaxies. The first portion of the thesis describes the development of radiative transfer tools used to address these problems. I present a description of how the Monte Carlo technique can be used to solve the radiative transfer equation, and I demonstrate a coupling of the transfer solution with the equations of hydrodynamics and statistical equilibrium. I next present two major applications of these ideas. The first is to quantify the effects of radiative feedback in active galactic nuclei in the form of radiation pressure on dust at the center of a gas-rich galaxy. The second is a calculation of the spectral energy distributions and optical spectral line strengths emitted during the tidal disruption of a star by a massive black hole. In so doing, I help to answer a number of puzzling questions relating to such disruptions, such as whether the lack of hydrogen emission in their spectra can be the result of radiative transfer effects rather than a lack of hydrogen in the disrupted star.