How do massive black holes get their gas

By P. Hopkins, E. Quataert. 2009

432 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We use multiscale smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations to study the inflow of gas from galactic scales (∼10 kpc) down to ≲ 0.1 pc, at which point the gas begins to resemble a traditional, Keplerian accretion disc. The key ingredients of the simulations are gas, stars, black holes (BHs), self-gravity, star formation and stellar feedback (via a subgrid model); BH feedback is not included. We use ∼100 simulations to survey a large parameter space of galaxy properties and subgrid models for the interstellar medium physics. We generate initial conditions for our simulations of galactic nuclei (≲ 300 pc) using galaxy-scale simulations, including both major galaxy mergers and isolated bar-(un)stable disc galaxies. For sufficiently gas-rich, disc-dominated systems, we find that a series of gravitational instabilities generates large accretion rates of up to ∼ 1–10 M⊙ yr−1 on to the BH (i.e. at ≲ 0.1 pc); this is comparable to what is needed to fuel the most luminous quasars. The BH accretion rate is highly time variable for a given set of conditions in the galaxy at ∼kpc. At radii of >rsim 10 pc, our simulations resemble the ‘bars-within-bars’ model of Shlosman et al., but we show that the gas can have a diverse array of morphologies, including spirals, rings, clumps and bars; the duty cycle of these features is modest, complicating attempts to correlate BH accretion with the morphology of gas in galactic nuclei. At ∼ 1–10 pc, the gravitational potential becomes dominated by the BH and bar-like modes are no longer present. However, we show that the gas can become unstable to a standing, eccentric disc or a single-armed spiral mode (m= 1), in which the stars and gas precess at different rates, driving the gas to sub-pc scales (again for sufficiently gas-rich, disc-dominated systems). A proper treatment of this mode requires including star formation and the self-gravity of both the stars and gas (which has not been the case in many previous calculations). Our simulations predict a correlation between the BH accretion rate and the star formation rate at different galactic radii. We find that nuclear star formation is more tightly coupled to active galactic nucleus activity than the global star formation rate of a galaxy, but a reasonable correlation remains even for the latter.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a2a309e8596dfda8594be06f4b1ce0ef00e495c3

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Citations in the corpus

The Romulus cosmological simulations: a physical approach to the formation, dynamics and accretion models of SMBHs (2016, methodology): “Furthermore, SMBH accretion is commonly calculated via a boosted Bondi-Hoyle prescription (e.g. Booth & Schaye 2009), but the assumptions of this approach break down for gas supported by rotation rather than internal pressure (Hopkins & Quataert 2010).”
What drives the growth of black holes (2011, methodology): “For example, adopting this approach Hopkins & Quataert (2010) traced the dynamics of gas inflow over a broad range of scales (from ≈ 10 kpc down to 1 pc), taking into account the effects of stars, star formation, stellar feedback, and the gravitational influence of the BH.”
Limiting eccentricity of subparsec massive black hole binaries surrounded by self-gravitating gas discs (2011, background): “Larger scale simulations show episodic gas inflows due to the dynamical evolution of the nucleus of the remnant (see e.g. Escala 2006; Hopkins & Quataert 2010).”
The impact of angular momentum on black hole accretion rates in simulations of galaxy formation (2013, background): “On the scales relevant to our simulations, the appropriate transport mechanism is likely to be gravitational instability (Hopkins & Quataert 2010, 2011) rather than the magnetorotational instability.”
Hyper-Eddington accretion flows on to massive black holes (2015, background): “However, the mechanism of angular momentum transfer of the gas from the galactic scale to the BH scale is still debated (e.g. Hopkins & Quataert 2010).”
Stellar and Quasar Feedback in Concert: Effects on AGN Accretion, Obscuration, and Outflows (2015, methodology): “For the simulation without AGN feedback, the m = 1 mode amplitude found here ∼ 0.1 is similar to that found in Hopkins & Quataert (2010a)’s simulations with gas fractions & 0.5.”
Raining on black holes and massive galaxies: the top-down multiphase condensation model (2016, background): “7 In a long-term cosmological evolution, gravitational torques can further facilitate accretion (Hopkins & Quataert 2010).”
Gravitational torque-driven black hole growth and feedback in cosmological simulations (2016, background): “Hopkins & Quataert (2010) addressed the problem of AGN fuelling by performing multiple nested galaxy-scale simulations of progressively higher resolution.”
Simulating galaxy formation with black hole driven thermal and kinetic feedback (2016, background): “First, the detailed physical mechanisms of both accretion on to SMBHs (Hopkins & Quataert 2010, 2011; Anglés-Alcázar et al. 2013; Gaspari et al. 2013; Anglés-Alcázar et al. 2015, 2016; Curtis & Sijacki 2015, 2016; Emsellem et al. 2015; Rosas-Guevara et al. 2015) and the AGN-gas interaction…”
Growth and activity of black holes in galaxy mergers with varying mass ratios (2014, background): “Theoretically, numerous simulations have considered the triggering of BH accretion in equal-mass galaxy mergers (e.g. Di Matteo, Springel & Hernquist 2005; Hopkins et al. 2006; Hopkins & Quataert 2010).”
THE NON-CAUSAL ORIGIN OF THE BLACK-HOLE–GALAXY SCALING RELATIONS (2010, background): “Recently, first nested multi-scale simulations of gas inflow into the very centers of galaxies have been successful (Hopkins & Quataert 2010) and give a first impression of how in principle random instabilities, strongly depending on the actual conditions in the galaxy, can create gas inflow into…”
FEEDBACK FROM CENTRAL BLACK HOLES IN ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES: TWO-DIMENSIONAL MODELS COMPARED TO ONE-DIMENSIONAL MODELS (2010, methodology): “In future work, we will expand our treatment to include angular momentum transport via the standard α prescription (Shakura & Sunyaev 1973) and more recent models based on gravitational torques (Hopkins & Quataert 2010a).”
Tracing the cosmic growth of supermassive black holes to z ∼ 3 with Herschel (2014, background): “…have been proposed: major mergers of gas-rich galaxies (Sanders et al. 1988; Di Matteo et al. 2005; Hopkins et al. 2006; Menci et al. 2008; Hopkins & Quataert 2010); gradually varying processes (Kormendy & Kennicutt 2004), which in turn include internal secular evolution (i.e. large-scale…”
An analytic model of angular momentum transport by gravitational torques: from galaxies to massive black holes (2010, methodology): “We refer the reader to Hopkins & Quataert (2010a) for more detailed information about the properties of the gas and stars in the simulations (e.g., Q[r], h/r, etc).”
BLACK HOLE VARIABILITY AND THE STAR FORMATION–ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS CONNECTION: DO ALL STAR-FORMING GALAXIES HOST AN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS? (2013, background): “…be closely linked in galaxies, driven by a common supply of cold gas (e.g., Di Matteo et al. 2005; Hopkins et al. 2006; Somerville et al. 2008; Hopkins & Quataert 2010; Anglés-Alcázar et al. 2013a) and with energy released by the AGN potentially triggering new star formation (e.g., Nayakshin…”
Physical Models of Galaxy Formation in a Cosmological Framework (2014, background): “Hopkins & Quataert (2010, 2011) studied angular momentum transport in disks with non-axisymmetric perturbations both analytically and in simulations, showing that such secular processes can significantly fuel BH growth, as also suggested by Bournaud et al. (2011) and Gabor & Bournaud (2013).”
What controls star formation in the central 500 pc of the Galaxy (2013, background): “While this by itself can already cause star formation to be episodic, it is also known from numerical simulations (Hopkins & Quataert 2010) that the presence of a bar can cause substantial variations of the gas inflow towards a galaxy centre.”