Direct Cosmological Simulations of the Growth of Black Holes and Galaxies

By T. Di Matteo, J. Colberg, Volker Springel, L. Hernquist, D. Sijacki. 2007

447 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We investigate the coupled formation and evolution of galaxies and their embedded supermassive black holes using state-of-the-art hydrodynamic simulations of cosmological structure formation. For the first time, we self-consistently follow the dark matter dynamics, radiative gas cooling, and star formation, as well as BH growth and associated feedback processes, starting directly from initial conditions appropriate for the ΛCDM cosmology. Our modeling of the black hole physics is based on an approach that we have developed in simulations of isolated galaxy mergers. Here we examine (1) the predicted global history of BH mass assembly, (2) the evolution of the local black hole-host mass correlations, and (3) the conditions that allow rapid growth of the first quasars, and the properties of their hosts and descendants today. We find a total BH mass density in good agreement with observational estimates. The BH accretion rate density peaks at lower redshift and evolves more strongly at high redshift than the star formation rate density, but the ratio of black hole to stellar mass density shows only a moderate evolution at low redshifts. We find strong correlations between BH masses and properties of the stellar systems, agreeing well with the measured local MBH-σ and MBH-M* relationships, but also suggesting (dependent on the mass range) a weak evolution with redshift in the normalization and the slope. Our simulations also produce massive black holes at high redshift, due to extended periods of exponential growth in regions that collapse early and exhibit strong gas inflows. These first supermassive BH systems, however, are not necessarily the most massive ones today, since they are often overtaken in growth by quasars that form later.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/967c0af0219b2ab512dc59ee0ab868c2192c6d29

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. Volker Springel
4. R. Dav'e
5. R. Somerville
6. T. Naab
7. Thomas J. Cox
8. D. Keres̆

In Instrumentation

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. Volker Springel
4. R. Dav'e
5. R. Somerville
6. T. Naab
7. Thomas J. Cox
8. A. Dekel

Citations in the corpus

• MORPHOLOGICAL QUENCHING OF STAR FORMATION: MAKING EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES RED (2009, background): “…et al. 2009), (iii) energy feedback from an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN), which could itself be triggered by galaxy mergers (Hopkins et al. 2005; Di Matteo et al. 2008; Cattaneo et al. 2005, 2006, 2009; Johansson et al. 2009a; Schawinski et al. 2009) (iv) and gravitational heating of a gas disk…”
• The n ature of submillimetre galaxies in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations (2009, background): “It is worth noting that our simulations do not produce a population of passively evolving galaxies as observed, likely because we do not explicitly include any physical process that fully quenches star formation, such as AGN feedback (e.g. di Matteo et al. 2008).”
• Multi-scale initial conditions for cosmological simulations (2011, background): “…and evolution of galaxies including aspects of the interstellar medium, molecular cloud-formation and black hole accretion processes (e.g. Di Matteo et al. 2008; Wise & Abel 2008; Ceverino & Klypin 2009; Bournaud et al. 2010); and even the formation of the first proto-stars formed at scales…”
• AGN-driven quenching of star formation: morphological and dynamical implications for early-type galaxies (2013, background): “…Puchwein, Sijacki & Springel 2008; Khalatyan et al. 2008; McCarthy et al. 2010, 2011; Dubois et al. 2010, 2011; Teyssier et al. 2011), and that it can reproduce the relatively tight MBH–Mb, MBH–σ b relationships (Sijacki et al. 2007; Di Matteo et al. 2008; Booth & Schaye 2009; Dubois et al. 2012).”
• 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…”
• Stellar and Quasar Feedback in Concert: Effects on AGN Accretion, Obscuration, and Outflows (2015, unknown): “This is a heavily modified version of the parallel TreeSPH code GADGET-3 (Springel 2005), in a fully conservative formulation (Springel & Hernquist 2002) which is also density-independent in a manner that allows contact discontinuities and improved fluid mixing (Hopkins 2013, see Appendix C).”
• The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe (2014, background): “Many other authors have proposed less iconoclastic models in which the delivery of a fresh supply of cold gas to the center of a galaxy leads to both a strong starburst and the efficient fueling of the SMBH (e.g. Sanders et al. 1988a,b, Hopkins et al. 2006, 2008, Di Matteo et al. 2008).”
• The MassiveBlack-II simulation: The evolution of haloes and galaxies to z ~ 0 (2014, methodology): “…Di Matteo & Springel 2011a; Chatterjee et al. 2012), successfully reproducing basic properties of BH growth, the observed MBH−σ relation and the BH MF (Di Matteo et al. 2008), the quasar luminosity function (QLF; Degraf et al. 2010) at z ≥ 0.5 and the clustering of quasars (Degraf et al. 2011a).”
• 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).”
• Galaxy formation theory (2010, background): “…(Silk and Rees 1998; Monaco et al. 2000; Kauffmann and Haehnelt 2000; King 2003; Wyithe and Loeb 2003; Matteo et al. 2003; Volonteri et al. 2003; King 2005; Begelman and Nath 2005; Malbon et al. 2007; Matteo et al. 2008; Volonteri et al. 2008; Sijacki et al. 2009; Volonteri and Natarajan 2009).”
• Molecular line emission in NGC 1068 imaged with ALMA: I. An AGN-driven outflow in the dense molecular gas (2014, background): “Radiative and mechanical feedback is often invoked as a mechanism of self-regulation in galaxy evolution (Di Matteo et al. 2005, 2008).”
• Gravitational torque-driven black hole growth and feedback in cosmological simulations (2016, background): “Our approach follows Di Matteo et al. (2008).”
• Supermassive black holes and their feedback effects in the IllustrisTNG simulation (2017, methodology): “…can be used to turn the statistical properties of the predicted SMBH population into powerful tests of the SMBH model adopted in a simulation (Di Matteo et al. 2008; DeGraf et al. 2012; Hirschmann et al. 2014; Sijacki et al. 2015; Volonteri et al. 2016), even though the observations are subject…”
• COLD FLOWS AND THE FIRST QUASARS (2011, methodology): “…2010, 2011b; Booth & Schaye 2011) have shown that it can reproduce all the basic properties of black hole growth, the observed MBH − σ, relation (Di Matteo et al. 2008), the quasar luminosity function (Degraf et al. 2010) and its evolution as well as the spatial clustering of quasars (DeGraf et…”
• THE MAJOR AND MINOR GALAXY MERGER RATES AT z < 1.5 (2011, methodology): “…Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA 11 NASA Postdoctoral Fellow of dispersion-dominated spheroids (e.g. Toomre 1977; White & Rees 1978; Kauffmann, White, & Guiderdoni 1993; Mihos & Hernquist 1996; Sanders & Mirabel 1996; Somerville et al. 2001, 2008; di Matteo et al. 2008; Hopkins et al. 2006, 2008).”
• IMPACT OF CLUSTER PHYSICS ON THE SUNYAEV–ZEL'DOVICH POWER SPECTRUM (2010, methodology): “…effort to implement and study AGN feedback in hydrodynamical simulations of cosmological volumes has only recently begun (Sijacki et al. 2007; Di Matteo et al. 2008; Booth & Schaye 2009; Teyssier et al. 2010), these studies will shed light on the extent to which non-gravitational heating…”