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Register a new userHow AGN feedback drives the size growth of the first quasars
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Added by
Dieuwertje van der Vlugt
Publication date
2019
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Quasars at $z ,=, 6$ are powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes with masses $M_{rm BH} sim 10^9 rm , M_{odot}$. Their rapid assembly requires efficient gas inflow into the galactic nucleus, sustaining black hole accretion at a rate close to the Eddington limit, but also high central star formation rates. Using a set of cosmological zoom-in hydrodynamic simulations performed with the moving mesh code Arepo, we show that $z ,=, 6$ quasar host galaxies develop extremely tightly bound stellar bulges with peak circular velocities $300$ - $500$ km s$^{-1}$ and half-mass radii $approx 0.5 , rm kpc$. Despite their high binding energy, we find that these compact bulges expand at $z , < , 6$, with their half-mass radii reaching $ approx 5$ kpc by $z , = , 3$. The circular velocity drops by factors $approx 2$ from their initial values to $200$ - $300$ km s$^{-1}$ at $z , approx , 3$ and the stellar profile undergoes a cusp-core transformation. By tracking individual stellar populations, we find that the gradual expansion of the stellar component is mainly driven by fluctuations in the gravitational potential induced by bursty AGN feedback. We also find that galaxy size growth and the development of a cored stellar profile does not occur if AGN feedback is ineffective. Our findings suggest that AGN-driven outflows may have profound implications for the internal structure of massive galaxies, possibly accounting for their size growth, the formation of cored ellipticals as well as for the saturation of the $M_{rm BH}$ - $sigma_{star}$ seen at high velocity dispersions $sigma_{star}$.
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Massive black holes (BHs) are at once exotic and yet ubiquitous, residing in the centers of massive galaxies in the local Universe. Recent years have seen remarkable advances in our understanding of how these BHs form and grow over cosmic time, during which they are revealed as active galactic nuclei (AGN). However, despite decades of research, we still lack a coherent picture of the physical drivers of BH growth, the connection between the growth of BHs and their host galaxies, the role of large-scale environment on the fueling of BHs, and the impact of BH-driven outflows on the growth of galaxies. In this paper we review our progress in addressing these key issues, motivated by the science presented at the What Drives the Growth of Black Holes? workshop held at Durham on 26th-29th July 2010, and discuss how these questions may be tackled with current and future facilities.
We present a new analysis of the PG quasar sample based on Spitzer and Herschel observations. (I) Assuming PAH-based star formation luminosities (L_SF) similar to Symeonidis et al. (2016, S16), we find mean and median intrinsic AGN spectral energy distributions (SEDs). These, in the FIR, appear hotter and significantly less luminous than the S16 mean intrinsic AGN SED. The differences are mostly due to our normalization of the individual SEDs, that properly accounts for a small number of very FIR-luminous quasars. Our median, PAH-based SED represents ~ 6% increase on the 1-243 micron luminosity of the extended Mor & Netzer (2012, EM12) torus SED, while S16 find a significantly larger difference. It requires large-scale dust with T ~ 20 -- 30 K which, if optically thin and heated by the AGN, would be outside the host galaxy. (II) We also explore the black hole and stellar mass growths, using L_SF estimates from fitting Herschel/PACS observations after subtracting the EM12 torus contribution. We use rough estimates of stellar mass, based on scaling relations, to divide our sample into groups: on, below and above the star formation main sequence (SFMS). Objects on the SFMS show a strong correlation between star formation luminosity and AGN bolometric luminosity, with a logarithmic slope of ~ 0.7. Finally we derive the relative duty cycles of this and another sample of very luminous AGN at z = 2 -- 3.5. Large differences in this quantity indicate different evolutionary pathways for these two populations characterised by significantly different black hole masses.
The interstellar medium is crucial to understanding the physics of active galaxies and the coevolution between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. However, direct gas measurements are limited by sensitivity and other uncertainties. Dust provides an efficient indirect probe of the total gas. We apply this technique to a large sample of quasars, whose total gas content would be prohibitively expensive to measure. We present a comprehensive study of the full (1 to 500 micron) infrared spectral energy distributions of 87 redshift <0.5 quasars selected from the Palomar-Green sample, using photometric measurements from 2MASS, WISE, and Herschel, combined with Spitzer mid-infrared (5 to 40 micron) spectra. With a newly developed Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo fitting method, we decompose various overlapping contributions to the integrated spectral energy distribution, including starlight, warm dust from the torus, and cooler dust on galaxy scales. This procedure yields a robust dust mass, which we use to infer the gas mass, using a gas-to-dust ratio constrained by the host galaxy stellar mass. Most (90%) quasar hosts have gas fractions similar to those of massive, star-forming galaxies, although a minority (10%) seem genuinely gas-deficient, resembling present-day massive early-type galaxies. This result indicates that quasar mode feedback does not occur or is ineffective in the host galaxies of low-redshift quasars. We also find that quasars can boost the interstellar radiation field and heat dust on galactic scales. This cautions against the common practice of using the far-infrared luminosity to estimate the host galaxy star formation rate.
We present a multi-wavelength analysis of the galaxy cluster A1668, performed by means of new EVLA and Chandra observations and archival H$alpha$ data. The radio images exhibit a small central source ($sim$14 kpc at 1.4 GHz) with L$_{text{1.4 GHz}}$ $sim$6 $cdot$ 10$^{23}$ W Hz$^{-1}$. The mean spectral index between 1.4 GHz and 5 GHz is $sim$ -1, consistent with the usual indices found in BCGs. The cooling region extends for 40 kpc, with bolometric X-ray luminosity L$_{text{cool}} = 1.9pm 0.1 cdot$ 10$^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$. We detect an offset of $sim$ 6 kpc between the cluster BCG and the X-ray peak, and another offset of $sim$ 7.6 kpc between the H$alpha$ and the X-ray peaks. We discuss possible causes for these offsets, which suggest that the coolest gas is not condensing directly from the lowest-entropy gas. In particular, we argue that the cool ICM was drawn out from the core by sloshing, whereas the H$alpha$ filaments were pushed aside from the expanding radio galaxy lobes. We detect two putative X-ray cavities, spatially associated to the west radio lobe (cavity A) and to the east radio lobe (cavity B). The cavity power and age of the system are P$_{text{cav}} sim$ 9 $times$10$^{42}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and t$_{text{age}} sim$5.2 Myr, respectively. Evaluating the position of A1668 in the cooling luminosity-cavity power parameter space, we find that the AGN energy injection is currently consistent within the scatter of the relationship, suggesting that offset cooling is likely not breaking the AGN feedback cycle.
Supermassive blackholes with masses of a billion solar masses or more are known to exist up to $z=7$. However, the present-day environments of the descendants of first quasars is not well understood and it is not known if they live in massive galaxy clusters or more isolated galaxies at $z=0$. We use a dark matter-only realization (BTMassTracer) of the BlueTides cosmological hydrodynamic simulation to study the halo properties of the descendants of the most massive black holes at $z=8$. We find that the descendants of the quasars with most massive black holes are not amongst the most massive halos. They reside in halos of with group-like ($sim 10^{14}M_{odot}$) masses, while the most massive halos in the simulations are rich clusters with masses $sim 10^{15} M_{odot}$. The distribution of halo masses at low redshift is similar to that of the descendants of least massive black holes, for a similar range of halo masses at $z=8$, which indicates that they are likely to exist in similar environments. By tracing back to the $z = 8$ progenitors of the most massive (cluster sized) halos at $z=0$; we find that their most likely black hole mass is less than $10^7 M_{odot}$; they are clearly not amongst the most massive black holes. We also provide estimates for the likelihood of finding a high redshift quasar hosting a black hole with masses above $10^{7} M_{odot}$ for a given halo mass at $z=0$. For halos above $10^{15} M_{odot}$, there is only $20 %$ probability that their $z=8$ progenitors hosted a black hole with mass above $10^{7} M_{odot}$.
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