A unified model for AGN feedback in cosmological simulations of structure formation

By D. Sijacki, Volker Springel, T. Di Matteo, Lars Hernquist Mpa, Cmu, Harvard-CfA. 2007

688 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We discuss a numerical model for black hole growth and its associated feedback processes that for the first time allows cosmological simulations of structure formation to self-consistently follow the build up of the cosmic population of galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Our model assumes that seed black holes are present at early cosmic epochs at the centres of forming haloes. We then track their growth from gas accretion and mergers with other black holes in the course of cosmic time. For black holes that are active, we distinguish between two distinct modes of feedback, depending on the black hole accretion rate itself. Black holes that accrete at high rates are assumed to be in a ‘quasar regime’, where we model their feedback by thermally coupling a small fraction of their bolometric luminosity to the surrounding gas. The quasar activity requires high densities of relatively cold gas around the black hole, as it is achieved through large-scale inflows triggered by galaxy mergers. For black holes with low accretion rates, we conjecture that most of their feedback occurs in mechanical form, where AGN-driven bubbles are injected into a gaseous environment. This regime of activity, which is subdominant in terms of total black hole mass growth, can be identified with radio galaxies in clusters of galaxies, and can suppress cluster cooling flows without the requirement of a triggering by mergers. Using our new model, we carry out TREESPH cosmological simulations on the scales of individual galaxies to those of massive galaxy clusters, both for isolated systems and for cosmological boxes. We demonstrate that our model produces results for the black hole and stellar mass densities in broad agreement with observational constraints. We find that the black holes significantly influence the evolution of their host galaxies, changing their star formation history, their amount of cold gas and their colours. Furthermore, the properties of intracluster gas are affected strongly by the presence of massive black holes in the cores of galaxy clusters, leading to shallower metallicity and entropy profiles, and to a suppression of strong cooling flows. Our results support the notion that AGNs are a key ingredient in cosmological structure formation. They lead to a self-regulated growth of black holes and bring the simulated properties of their host galaxies into much better agreement with observations.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2c33efa5447e648e61db06e5efa85e603ad01dbf

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Citations in the corpus

Simulations of AGN Feedback in Galaxy Clusters and Groups: Impact on Gas Fractions and the LX-T Scaling Relation (2008, methodology): “One containing the physics just described and an additional one including a model for BH growth and associated feedback processes as in Springel et al. (2005a) and Sijacki et al. (2007).”
Massive Black Hole Binary Mergers in Dynamical Galactic Environments (2016, methodology): “Specifically, halos with a total mass above 7.1 × 1010 M , identified using an on the fly Friends-Of-Friends (FOF) algorithm, which don’t already have a MBH are given one with a seed mass, Mseed = 1.42×105 M (Sijacki et al. 2007).”
Gravitational torque-driven black hole growth and feedback in cosmological simulations (2016, background): “…show that black hole feedback can have a large impact on the thermodynamic properties of the intergalactic medium as well as the overall growth of galaxies and massive black holes, in qualitative agreement with previous work (e.g. Sijacki et al. 2007; Vogelsberger et al. 2014; Schaye et al. 2015).”
Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Seeds (2016, background): “This may be achieved via prolonged episodes of accretion and/or merging in rare massive halos forming at earlier cosmic times as found in large cosmological simulations (Sijacki et al. 2007, 2015; Di Matteo et al. 2012, 2016).”
THE XMM-NEWTON WIDE-FIELD SURVEY IN THE COSMOS FIELD (XMM-COSMOS): DEMOGRAPHY AND MULTIWAVELENGTH PROPERTIES OF OBSCURED AND UNOBSCURED LUMINOUS ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2010, background): “…and shocks from the central AGN heat the interstellar medium, blowing away the dust and gas, thus cleaning the line of sight and inhibiting further star-formation (see e.g. Granato et al. 2004, Di Matteo et al. 2005; Croton et al. 2006; Sijacki et al. 2007; Menci et al. 2008; Hopkins et al. 2008).”
Mechanical AGN feedback: controlling the thermodynamical evolution of elliptical galaxies (2012, methodology): “(ii) Many studies – including ours (G11a,b) – use the Bondi (1952) theory to estimate the instantaneous mass accretion rate on to the BH (Springel, Di Matteo & Hernquist 2005; Cattaneo & Teyssier 2007; Sijacki et al. 2007; Puchwein, Sijacki & Springel 2008; Booth & Schaye 2009; Dubois et al. 2010).”
ON THE COSMIC EVOLUTION OF THE SCALING RELATIONS BETWEEN BLACK HOLES AND THEIR HOST GALAXIES: BROAD-LINE ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI IN THE zCOSMOS SURVEY (2009, background): “On the other hand, fully hydrodynamic simulations of the cosmological evolution of SMBH have been also performed (Di Matteo et al. 2003, 2008; Sijacki et al. 2007; Coldberg & Di Matteo 2008), but their computational costs have so far allowed only a limited exploration of sub-grid prescriptions (AGN…”
CONNECTING ANGULAR MOMENTUM AND GALACTIC DYNAMICS: THE COMPLEX INTERPLAY BETWEEN SPIN, MASS, AND MORPHOLOGY (2015, methodology): “Additionally, we incorporated the feedback prescription according to Fabjan et al. (2010): we account for a transition from a quasar- to a radio-mode feedback (see also Sijacki et al. 2007) whenever the accretion rate falls below an Eddingtonratio of f M M 10 .edd r edd 2≔ ˙ ˙ < -”
Jet-induced star formation in gas-rich galaxies (2011, background): “…radio and/or quasar mode) is often thought to heat or expel gas from the galaxy and to be acting mostly on the circum-galactic gas (e.g. Springel et al. 2005; Croton et al. 2006; Sijacki et al. 2007; Bower et al. 2008; Booth & Schaye 2009; Dubois et al. 2011), lowering the star formation rates.”
ON THE CLUSTER PHYSICS OF SUNYAEV–ZEL'DOVICH AND X-RAY SURVEYS. I. THE INFLUENCE OF FEEDBACK, NON-THERMAL PRESSURE, AND CLUSTER SHAPES ON Y–M SCALING RELATIONS (2011, methodology): “In hydrodynamical simulations, it has been shown that incorporating a sub-grid for AGN feedback can resolve the overcooling problem (e.g., Sijacki et al. 2007, 2008; Battagliaet l. 2010; McCarthy et al. 2011).”
SIMULATIONS OF THE SUNYAEV–ZEL'DOVICH POWER SPECTRUM WITH ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS FEEDBACK (2010, methodology): “This behaviour is seen in other AGN feedback models (Sijacki et al. 2007) and has been extensively studied in non-AGN feedback simulations by Springel & Hernquist (2003b).”
Simulating the effect of active galactic nuclei feedback on the metal enrichment of galaxy clusters (2009, methodology): “In order to compare more closely with the result by Sijacki et al. (2007), we repeated the run of the g676 cluster by switching off the metallicity-dependence of thecooling function.”
What drives the growth of black holes (2011, background): “While mergers are favoured by a number of models (e.g., Kauffmann & Haehnelt, 2000; Springel et al., 2005b; Hopkins et al., 2006b; Sijacki et al., 2007; Di Matteo et al., 2008), any quasar triggering mechanism requires relatively massive systems with large supplies of cold gas, which are generally…”
CONSTRAINTS ON BLACK HOLE GROWTH, QUASAR LIFETIMES, AND EDDINGTON RATIO DISTRIBUTIONS FROM THE SDSS BROAD-LINE QUASAR BLACK HOLE MASS FUNCTION (2010, background): “Furthermore, feedback from the SMBH may continue to affect its environment long after its growth through the so-called radio mode feedback (Croton et al. 2006; Bower et al. 2006; Sijacki et al. 2007).”
A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies. II. Formation of Red Ellipticals (2007, background): “…quasars integrated over redshift (Soltan 1982; Hopkins et al. 2007d) indicates that the mass growth through the radio mode must be negligible (Hopkins et al. 2006d), in agreement with preliminary results from cosmological simulations of these processes (Sijacki et al. 2007; Di Matteo et al. 2008).”
The cosmic evolution of massive black holes in the Horizon-AGN simulation (2016, methodology): “Indeed, in most cases the parameters of BH accretion and feedback are tuned to reproduce these correlations (e.g. Sijacki et al. 2007; Di Matteo et al. 2008; Booth & Schaye 2009; Dubois et al. 2012).”
Simulating galaxy formation with black hole driven thermal and kinetic feedback (2016, methodology): “The extensive body of literature on coupled AGNgalaxy evolution (including Granato et al. 2004; Kawata & Gibson 2005; Sijacki et al. 2007; Di Matteo et al. 2008; Hopkins et al. 2008a,b; Okamoto et al. 2008; Somerville et al. 2008; Booth & Schaye 2009; Ciotti et al. 2010; Debuhr et al. 2010;…”
DISSIPATION AND EXTRA LIGHT IN GALACTIC NUCLEI. IV. EVOLUTION IN THE SCALING RELATIONS OF SPHEROIDS (2008, background): “Some initial attempts at studying these correlations have been made using cosmological simulations (Naab et al. 2007; Di Matteo et al. 2008; Sijacki et al. 2007; Croft et al. 2008).”
Galaxy Evolution in Cosmological Simulations with Outflows II: Metallicities and Gas Fractions (2011, background): “…holes with associated feedback, and the presence of a stable hot gaseous halo (e.g. Kereš et al. 2005) that demarcates the virialized region from the ambient IGM (e.g. Croton et al. 2006; Bower et al. 2006; Sijacki et al. 2007; Hopkins et al. 2008; Somerville et al. 2008; Di Matteo et al. 2008).”