Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userInvestigating evidence for different black hole accretion modes since redshift z~1
97
0
0.0
(
0
)
Added by
Antonis Georgakakis
Publication date
2014
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Chandra data in the COSMOS, AEGIS-XD and 4Ms CDFS are combined with optical/near-IR photometry to determine the rest-frame U-V vs V-J colours of X-ray AGN hosts at mean redshifts 0.40 and 0.85. This combination of colours (UVJ) provides an efficient means of separating quiescent from star-forming, including dust reddened, galaxies. Morphological information emphasises differences between AGN split by their UVJ colours. AGN in quiescent galaxies are dominated by spheroids, while star-forming hosts are split between bulges and disks. The UVJ diagram of AGN hosts is then used to set limits on the accretion density associated with evolved and star-forming systems. Most of the black hole growth since z~1 is associated with star-forming hosts. Nevertheless, ~15-20% of the X-ray luminosity density since z~1, is taking place in the quiescent region of the UVJ diagram. For the z~0.40 subsample, there is tentative evidence (2sigma significance), that AGN split by their UVJ colours differ in Eddington ratio. AGN in star-forming hosts dominate at high Eddington ratios, while AGN in quiescent hosts become increasingly important as a fraction of the total population toward low Eddington ratios. At higher redshift, z~0.8, such differences are significant at the 2sigma level only at Eddington ratios >1e-3. These findings are consistent with scenarios in which diverse accretion modes are responsible for the build-up of SMBHs at the centres of galaxies. We compare our results with the GALFORM semi-analytic model, which postulates two black hole fuelling modes, the first linked to star-formation and the second occuring in passive galaxies. GALFORM predicts a larger fraction of black hole growth in quiescent galaxies at z<1, compared to the data. Relaxing the strong assumption of the model that passive AGN hosts have zero star-formation rate could reconcile this disagreement.
rate research
Read More
We have selected a sample of X-ray emitting active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in low-mass host galaxies (5e9-2e10 Msun) out to z~1. By comparing to AGNs in more massive hosts, we have found that the AGN spatial number density and the fraction of galaxies hosting AGNs depends strongly on the host mass, with the AGN host mass function peaking at intermediate mass and with the AGN fraction increasing with host mass. AGNs in low-mass hosts show strong cosmic evolution in comoving number density, the fraction of such galaxies hosting active nuclei and the comoving X-ray energy density. The integrated X-ray luminosity function is used to estimate the amount of the accreted black hole mass in these AGNs and places a strong lower limit of 12% to the fraction of local low-mass galaxies hosting black holes, though a more likely value is probably much higher (> 50%) once the heavily-obscured objects missed in current X-ray surveys are accounted for.
We discuss two important instability mechanisms that may lead to the limit-cycle oscillations of the luminosity of the accretion disks around compact objects: ionization instability and radiation-pressure instability. Ionization instability is well established as a mechanism of X-ray novae eruptions in black hole binary systems but its applicability to AGN is still problematic. Radiation pressure theory has still very weak observational background in any of these sources. In the present paper we attempt to confront the parameter space of these instabilities with the observational data. At the basis of this simple survey of sources properties we argue that the radiation pressure instability is likely to be present in several Galactic sources with the Eddington ratios above 0.15, and in AGN with the Eddington ratio above 0.025. Our results favor the parameterization of the viscosity through the geometrical mean of the radiation and gas pressure both in Galactic sources and AGN. More examples of the quasi-regular outbursts in the timescales of 100 seconds in Galactic sources, and hundreds of years in AGN are needed to formulate firm conclusions. We also show that the disk sizes in the X-ray novae are consistent with the ionization instability. This instability may also considerably influence the lifetime cycle and overall complexity in the supermassive black hole environment.
We present a study of the relationship between black hole accretion rate (BHAR) and star formation rate (SFR) in a sample of giant elliptical galaxies. These galaxies, which live at the centers of galaxy groups and clusters, have star formation and black hole activity that is primarily fueled by gas condensing out of the hot intracluster medium. For a sample of 46 galaxies spanning 5 orders of magnitude in BHAR and SFR, we find a mean ratio of log(BHAR/SFR) = -1.45 +/- 0.2, independent of the methodology used to constrain both SFR and BHAR. This ratio is significantly higher than most previously-published values for field galaxies. We investigate whether these high BHAR/SFR ratios are driven by high BHAR, low SFR, or a different accretion efficiency in radio galaxies. The data suggest that the high BHAR/SFR ratios are primarily driven by boosted black hole accretion in spheroidal galaxies compared to their disk counterparts. We propose that angular momentum of the cool gas is the primary driver in suppressing BHAR in lower mass galaxies, with massive galaxies accreting gas that has condensed out of the hot phase on nearly radial trajectories. Additionally, we demonstrate that the relationship between specific BHAR and SFR has much less scatter over 6 orders of magnitude in both parameters, due to competing dependence on morphology between the M_BH--M_* and BHAR--SFR relations. In general, active galaxies selected by typical techniques have sBHAR/sSFR ~ 10, while galactic nuclei with no clear AGN signatures have sBHAR/sSFR ~ 1, consistent with a universal M_BH--M_spheroid relation.
We discuss the issues of stability of accretion disks that may undergo the limit-cycle oscillations due to the two main types of thermal-viscous instabilities. These are induced either by the domination of radiation pressure in the innermost regions close to the central black hole, or by the partial ionization of hydrogen in the zone of appropriate temperatures. These physical processes may lead to the intermittent activity in AGN on timescales between hundreds and millions of years. We list a number of observational facts that support the idea of the cyclic activity in high accretion rate sources. We conclude however that the observed features of quasars may provide only indirect signatures of the underlying instabilities. Also, the support from the sources with stellar mass black holes, whose variability timescales are observationally feasible, is limited to a few cases of the microquasars. Therefore we consider a number of plausible mechanisms of stabilization of the limit cycle oscillations in high accretion rate accretion disks. The newly found is the stabilizing effect of the stochastic viscosity fluctuations.
The formation, accretion and growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe are investigated. The accretion rate ${dot M}$ is calculated using the Bondi accretion rate onto black holes. Starting with initial seed black holes with masses $M_{rm BH}sim 10^2-10^3M_{odot}$, the Bondi accretion rate can evolve into a supermassive black hole with masses $M_{rm BH}sim 10^9-10^{10}M_{odot}$ and with a young quasar lifetime $sim 10^5-10^6$ years by super-Eddington accretion.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
