Observational Evidence of AGN Feedback

By A. C. Fabian. 2012

1,083 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Radiation, winds and jets from the active nucleus of a massive galaxy can interact with its interstellar medium leading to ejection or heating of the gas. This can terminate star formation in the galaxy and stifle accretion onto the black hole. Such Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) feedback can account for the observed proportionality between central black hole and host galaxy mass. Direct observational evidence for the radiative or quasar mode of feedback, which occurs when the AGN is very luminous, has been difficult to obtain but is accumulating from a few exceptional objects. Feedback from the kinetic or radio mode, which uses the mechanical energy of radio-emitting jets often seen when the AGN is operating at a lower level, is common in massive elliptical galaxies. This mode is well observed directly through X-ray observations of the central galaxies of cool core clusters in the form of bubbles in the hot surrounding medium. The energy flow, which is roughly continuous, heats the hot intracluster gas and reduces radiative cooling and subsequent star formation by an order of magnitude. Feedback appears to maintain a long-lived heating/cooling balance. Powerful, jetted radio outbursts may represent a further mode of energy feedback which affect the cores of groups and subclusters. New telescopes and instruments from the radio to X-ray bands will come into operation over the next few years and lead to a rapid expansion in observational data on all modes of AGN feedback.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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Citations in the corpus

TESTING THE NO-HAIR THEOREM WITH EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS OF SAGITTARIUS A* (2013, background): “This occurs both by moderating accretion of baryons into dark matter halos (i.e., feedback; for a review, see Fabian 2012) and injecting material back into the intergalactic medium (e.g., magnetic fields; Furlanetto & Loeb 2001).”
simba: Cosmological simulations with black hole growth and feedback (2019, background): “Since jets are observed to carry very hot gas, we raise the temperature of jet mode (only) outflows to the virial temperature of the halo, specifically Tvir = 9.52 × 107(Mhalo/1015M )1/3 K (Voit 2005).”
Cosmic X-ray surveys of distant active galaxies (2015, background): “…and, tentatively, suggests that they are the catalysts for the transition of galaxies from the blue cloud to the red sequence (e.g., through the suppression of star formation via energetic winds, outflows, and jets; see Veilleux et al 2005; Alexander and Hickox 2012; Fabian 2012 for reviews).”
Semi-implicit scheme for treating radiation under M1 closure in general relativistic conservative fluid dynamics codes (2012, positive): “…for measuring BH spins (McClintock et al. 2011; Straub et al. 2011), calculating the radiative efficiency of superEddington accretion discs (e.g. Sa̧dowski 2009) and understanding large-scale cosmological feedback by radiation-driven outflows from AGN (see Fabian 2012 for an observational review).”
Relativistic jet feedback – III. Feedback on gas discs (2018, background): “Powerful radio jets extending to ∼ 100 kpc and heating the ambient gas, especially in clusters of galaxies (Fabian 2012), are an archetypal maintenance mode scenario.”
Cool Gas in High-Redshift Galaxies (2013, background): “…galaxies at intermediate redshift (e.g., Feruglio et al. 2010), while powerful radio jets from AGN may be needed to heat the intercluster gas around massive galaxies at late cosmic epochs, thereby inhibiting further late–time growth of massive galaxies (Fabian 2012; McNamara & Nulsen 2007).”
Unification of X-ray winds in Seyfert galaxies: from ultra-fast outflows to warm absorbers (2012, background): “Therefore, these outflows, and in particular the UFOs, are clearly the most promising candidates to significantly contribute to the AGN feedback besides radio jets (e.g., Fabian 2012).”
The SRG/eROSITA all-sky survey (2024, positive): “…of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that sit at the centres of galaxies and which may strongly influence their formation and subsequent evolution (Brandt & Hasinger 2005; Hopkins et al. 2008; Hickox et al. 2009; Fabian 2012; Alexander & Hickox 2012; Kormendy & Ho 2013; Brandt & Alexander 2015).”
Ionised outflows in z $\sim$ 2.4 quasar host galaxies (2015, background): “Essentially, the observed correlations can be explained as the result of the balance between the outward radiation force generated by the AGN and the inward gravitional force of the host galaxy (e.g. King 2010; Fabian 2012).”
Evolution of density profiles in high-z galaxies: compaction and quenching inside-out (2015, background): “…Kereš et al. 2005; Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Kereš et al. 2009), or by gravitational infall heating (Dekel & Birnboim 2008; Birnboim & Dekel 2011; Khochfar & Ostriker 2008), which can be aided by AGN feedback coupled to the hot halo gas (Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2009; Fabian 2012).”
The COSMOS2015 galaxy stellar mass function . Thirteen billion years of stellar mass assembly in ten snapshots (2017, background): “In galaxies at M > M?, hot halo gas is removed or prevented from cooling (e.g. by AGN outflows, Fabian 2012) or virial shock heating (Dekel & Birnboim 2006).”
EVIDENCE FOR WIDE-SPREAD ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS-DRIVEN OUTFLOWS IN THE MOST MASSIVE z ∼ 1–2 STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2014, background): “It is thus not clear whether the radiatively efficient “quasar mode” can have much effect in regulating galaxy growth and star formation shutdown, as postulated in the theoretical work cited above (Heckman 2010; Fabian 2012).”
Wet Disc Contraction to Galactic Blue Nuggets and Quenching to Red Nuggets (2013, background): “…example, virial shock heating (Birnboim & Dekel 2003; Kereš et al. 2005; Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Kereš et al. 2009), gravitational infall heating (Dekel & Birnboim 2008; Khochfar & Ostriker 2008), or AGN feedback coupled to the hot halo (Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2009; Fabian 2012).”
Chaotic cold accretion on to black holes (2013, background): “…to distinguish it from the different massive cold flow linked 19 Momentum- or energy-driven feedback may also determine the conversion of M•−M∗ to the scaling with the stellar velocity dispersion, M• ∝ σ 4∗ −σ 5 (King 2005; Fabian 2012; Nayakshin, Power & King 2012). to galaxy formation at r rvir.”
The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational-wave Background (2023, background): “The SMBHs are believed to play particularly significant roles in shaping the structure of massive galaxies (Croton et al. 2006; Fabian 2012; Vogelsberger et al. 2014; Schaye et al. 2015; Weinberger et al. 2017), but many fundamental aspects, such as the formation channels of SMBH seeds in the early…”
THE SDSS-III BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: THE QUASAR LUMINOSITY FUNCTION FROM DATA RELEASE NINE (2012, background): “The energy feedback from AGN is thought to impact their host galaxies, and thus influencing their present-day properties (e.g., Cattaneo et al. 2009; Fabian 2012).”
Morphologies of z ∼ 0.7 AGN host galaxies in CANDELS: no trend of merger incidence with AGN luminosity (2014, background): “…passages of galaxies disturbing the gravitational potential (e.g. Hopkins et al. 2008), cooling of gas from the hot halo (e.g. Croton et al. 2006; Fabian 2012; Pope, Mendel & Shabala 2012), mass loss from stellar winds (e.g. Davies et al. 2012), cold flows in combination with violent disc…”
Diffuse Radio Emission from Galaxy Clusters (2019, background): “In the absence of a heating source, a cooling flow is expected to develop, whereby the tem- perature in the central region of the cluster drops and gas flows inwards (e.g., Fabian 1994; Peterson & Fabian 2006; Fabian 2012; McNamara & Nulsen 2012).”