Abstract: The most intense growth episodes of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are variable on all timescales, from minutes to billions of years. This has significant implications for our understanding of the cosmic history of SMBH growth and its connection to galactic evolution. In this talk, I will present a new observational technique based on spatially-resolved IFU spectroscopy with VLT/MUSE that allows us to study how SMBH growth has varied temporally on timescales of 10^(4-5) years. For longer timescales, I will examine observational and theoretical evidence demonstrating a strong link between major galactic mergers and the most rapid SMBH growth episodes. I will present results from our multifrequency studies of a sample of confirmed dual AGNs (pairs of growing SMBHs with nuclear separation <10 kpc). I will focus on our program that combines multi-wavelength observations, studying systems of two or more SMBHs growing simultaneously at very small nuclear separations (<1 kpc), which have remained hidden until now and which will be the progenitor population of gravitational wave events detectable with LISA in the next decade.
