A Physical Model for the Coevolution of QSOs and Their Spheroidal Hosts

By G. Granato, G. De Zotti, Laura Silva, A. Bressan, L. Danese. 2003

820 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a physically motivated model for the early coevolution of massive spheroidal galaxies and active nuclei at their centers. Within dark matter halos, forming at the rate predicted by the canonical hierarchical clustering scenario, the gas evolution is controlled by gravity, radiative cooling, and heating by feedback from supernovae and from the growing active nucleus. Supernova heating is increasingly effective with decreasing binding energy in slowing down the star formation and in driving gas outflows. The more massive protogalaxies virializing at earlier times are thus the sites of the faster star formation. The correspondingly higher radiation drag fastens the angular momentum loss by the gas, resulting in a larger accretion rate onto the central black hole. In turn, the kinetic energy carried by outflows driven by active nuclei can unbind the residual gas, thus halting both the star formation and the black hole growth, in a time again shorter for larger halos. For the most massive galaxies the gas unbinding time is short enough for the bulk of the star formation to be completed before Type Ia supernovae can substantially increase the Fe abundance of the interstellar medium, thus accounting for the α-enhancement seen in the largest galaxies. The feedback from supernovae and from the active nucleus also determines the relationship between the black hole mass and the mass, or the velocity dispersion, of the host galaxy, as well as the black hole mass function. In both cases the model predictions are in excellent agreement with the observational data. Coupling the model with GRASIL (Silva et al. 1998), the code computing in a self-consistent way the chemical and spectrophotometric evolution of galaxies over a very wide wavelength interval, we have obtained predictions in excellent agreement with observations for a number of observables that proved to be extremely challenging for all the current semianalytic models, including the submillimeter counts and the corresponding redshift distributions, and the epoch-dependent K-band luminosity function of spheroidal galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/325aaaec995278369fb89edf9703cc456d5f5a8e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Instrumentation

Citations in the corpus

Evidence of strong quasar feedback in the early Universe (2012, background): “…by quasars, which are expected to clear their host galaxies of the bulk of their gas, therefore quenching star formation (Silk & Rees 1998; Granato et al. 2004; Di Matteo et al. 2005; Springel et al. 2005; Croton et al. 2006; Narayanan et al. 2008; Hopkins et al. 2008; Fabian et al. 2009;…”
Modelling the galaxy bimodality: shutdown above a critical halo mass (2006, background): “Feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is the leading candidate for the source of such heating (Tabor & Binney 1993; Tucker & David 1997; Ciotti & Ostriker 1997; Silk & Rees 1998; Granato et al. 2004; Ruszkowski et al. 2004; Brüggen et al. 2005; Di Matteo et al. 2005; and references therein).”
Determining the Properties and Evolution of Red Galaxies from the Quasar Luminosity Function (2005, methodology): “This is also suggested directly by the comparison between luminosity functions and the modeling of Nagamine et al. (2001), Menci et al. (2004), and Granato et al. (2004) in Fontana et al. (2004), who show that these models under or over-predict the bright luminosity function at high redshift, but…”
EDDINGTON-LIMITED ACCRETION AND THE BLACK HOLE MASS FUNCTION AT REDSHIFT 6 (2010, background): “In comparison, star formation has no similar restriction and in fact the high densities in the early universe may actually have enhanced the star formation rate (e.g. Granato et al. 2004).”
How Mergers May Affect the Mass Scaling Relation between Gravitationally Bound Systems (2007, methodology): “…statistical exercise, and as such will not invoke merger trees or external physics – besides which many and much more sophisticated models have already been run (e.g. Volonteri et al. 2003; Islam et al. 2004; Granato et al. 2004; Fontanot et al. 2006; Robertson et al. 2006b; Ciotti et al. 2007).”
AGN wind scaling relations and the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies (2017, background): “Indeed, soon after the discovery of the SMBH-bulge relationships, several authors (Silk & Rees 1998; Fabian 1999; King 2003; Granato et al. 2004) suggested that they can be naturally explained if AGN winds efficiently interact with the galaxy ISM.”
The massive end of the luminosity and stellar mass functions: Dependence on the fit to the light profile (2013, background): “This may pose serious questions about the impact of feedback from active galactic nuclei, in the quasar and/or radio modes (e.g., Granato et al. 2004; Croton et al. 2006; Silk & Mamon 2012); even more so, if one considers that the baryon fraction of ellipticals at their formation epoch (z > 1) must…”
The Dramatic Size Evolution of Elliptical Galaxies and the Quasar Feedback (2008, methodology): “…size evolution (§ 2), then we present quantitative estimates on the evolution of the effective radius and of the central stellar velocity dispersion as a function of galactic mass, using the Granato et al. (2004) model as a reference (§ 3), and finally, in § 4, we summarize and discuss our results.”
Star Formation in the Hosts of High-z QSOs: Evidence from Spitzer PAH Detections (2008, background): “In turn, such scenarios are part of recent global modes of galaxy and merger evolution (e.g. Granato et al. 2004; Hopkins et al. 2006).”
Massive molecular outflows and evidence for AGN feedback from CO observations (2013, background): “…the details of the mechanism responsible for coupling the quasar radiation with the galactic ISM are still being debated (e.g. Silk & Rees 1998; Granato et al. 2004; Lapi et al. 2005; Di Matteo et al. 2005; Springel et al. 2005; Croton et al. 2006; Hopkins et al. 2008; Menci et al. 2008;…”