The Relation between Quasar and Merging Galaxy Luminosity Functions and the Merger-driven Star Formation History of the Universe

By P. Hopkins, R. Somerville, L. Hernquist, Thomas J. Cox, Brant Robertson, Yue-xing Li. 2006

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Using a model for the self-regulated growth of supermassive BHs in mergers involving gas-rich galaxies, we study the relationship between quasars and the population of merging galaxies and predict the merger-driven SFR density of the universe. Mergers drive gas inflows, fueling starbursts and ``buried'' quasars until feedback disperses the gas, allowing the quasar to be briefly visible as a bright optical source. By simulating the evolution of such events, we demonstrate that the observed statistics of merger rates/fractions, luminosity and mass functions, SFR distributions, quasar (and quasar host) luminosity functions, and elliptical/red galaxy luminosity and mass functions are self-consistent. We use our simulations to deconvolve quasar and merger luminosity functions and determine the birthrate of BHs and merger rates as a function of mass. From this, we predict the merging galaxy luminosity function in various observed wavebands, color-magnitude relations, mass functions, SFR distributions and density, and quasar host galaxy luminosity function, as a function of redshift from z = 0 to 6. We invert this to predict quasar luminosity functions from observed merger luminosity functions or SFR distributions. Our results show good agreement with observations, but idealized models of quasar light curves give inaccurate estimates and are ruled out at >99.9% confidence, provided that quasars are triggered in mergers. Using only quasar observations, we estimate the contribution of mergers to the SFR density of the universe to high redshifts, z ~ 4, and constrain the evolution in the characteristic initial gas fractions of quasar and spheroid-producing mergers.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b507c757276bb71ecc0e431c7440eaa2044ccb5d

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The DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey: the role of galaxy environment in the cosmic star formation history (2007, result): “In turn, the recently–completed DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey provides the most detailed census of the Universe at z ∼ 1 to date.”
The clustering of intermediate-redshift quasars as measured by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (2012, background): “…event—most likely a major merger (Carlberg 1990; Haiman & Loeb 1998; Cattaneo, Haehnelt & Rees 1999; Kauffmann & Haehnelt 2000; Springel et al. 2005; Hopkins et al. 2006) or instability in a cold-stream fed disk (Ciotti & Ostriker 1997, 2001; Di Matteo et al. 2012)—triggers a period of rapid,…”
A semi-analytic model for the co-evolution of galaxies, black holes and active galactic nuclei (2008, methodology): “We allow the BH to grow at the Eddington rate until it reaches a mass MBH,crit, whereupon it enters the ‘blow-out’ phase and begins a power-law decline in the accretion rate, according to the family of light curves defined by Hopkins et al. (2006b).”
HISTORY OF GALAXY INTERACTIONS AND THEIR IMPACT ON STAR FORMATION OVER THE LAST 7 Gyr FROM GEMS (2009, result): “Our results agree remarkably well with models for the self-regulated growth of supermassive black holes in mergers involving gas-rich galaxies (Hopkins et al. 2006).”
The clustering of the SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey DR14 quasar sample: measurement of the growth rate of structure from the anisotropic correlation function between redshift 0.8 and 2.2 (2018, background): “Other studies showed that the formation of such quasars could also be the result of a major merging of gas-rich galaxies (Sanders et al. 1988; Carlberg 1990; Hopkins et al. 2006).”
How Mergers May Affect the Mass Scaling Relation between Gravitationally Bound Systems (2007, background): “…radiation is produced by a massive enough BH, this energy budget is in principle sufficient to quench star formation and terminate the BH growth itself (e.g. Silk & Rees 1998; Di Matteo et al. 2005; Cattaneo et al. 2005; Springel et al. 2005; Hopkins et al. 2007, 2006a, and references therein).”
A unified model for AGN feedback in cosmological simulations of structure formation (2007, result): “This implies that our models are consistent with the Soltan argument (Soltan, 1982; Yu & Tremaine, 2002; Marconi et al., 2004; Merloni, 2004; Hopkins et al., 2006b), and shows that merger-driven quasar activity is still dominating the black hole assembly in our unified model for AGN feedback.”
A Theoretical Interpretation of the Black Hole Fundamental Plane (2007, methodology): “…et al. 2005) which follow the co-formation of BHs and bulges, as well as theories which relate the evolution and statistics of BH formation and quasar activity to galaxy mergers (e.g., Hopkins et al. 2006a, 2007f, 2006e, 2007c) and to the remnant spheroid population (Hopkins et al. 2006c, 2007b).”
A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies. I. Galaxy Mergers and Quasar Activity (2007, methodology): “Following the methodology developed by Springel & Hernquist (2003) and Springel et al. (2005b), Hopkins et al. (2006a, 2006b) use a large set of several hundred hydrodynamical simulations (see Robertson et al. 2006b) of galaxy mergers, varying the relevant physics, galaxy properties, orbits, and…”
What drives the growth of black holes (2011, background): “…(e.g., BH mass density and distribution, evolving AGN luminosity functions, X-ray background spectrum; e.g., Marconi et al. 2004; Merloni 2004; Shankar et al. 2004, 2009; Hopkins et al. 2006a, 2008; Malbon et al. 2007; Di Matteo et al. 2008; Somerville et al. 2008; Fanidakis et al. 2011, 2012).”
THE DRIVING MECHANISM OF STARBURSTS IN GALAXY MERGERS (2010, background): “Galaxies formed a significant fraction of their stars during violent interactions and mergers as probed by observations (e.g., Elbaz & Cesarsky 2003) and numerical models (e.g., Hopkins et al. 2006).”
BLACK HOLE VARIABILITY AND THE STAR FORMATION–ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS CONNECTION: DO ALL STAR-FORMING GALAXIES HOST AN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS? (2013, background): “…models predict that SF and BH growth should 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…”
The morphology of H ii regions during reionization (2006, background): “…the collapse fraction in a given region is changing nearly exponentially with time and so the rate of halo mass growth is proportional to the halo mass. Alternatively, star formation or quasar activity may be correlated with major mergers (see Hopkins et al. 2006a,b; Li et al. 2006 for discussion).”
Stellar and Quasar Feedback in Concert: Effects on AGN Accretion, Obscuration, and Outflows (2015, background): “…has been able to explain many quasar observables, including luminosity functions, lifetimes, and ∗ E-mail:phopkins@caltech.edu BH mass functions (Hopkins et al. 2005b, 2006c, 2008b, 2009a; Volonteri et al. 2006; Menci et al. 2003; Somerville et al. 2008; Lapi et al. 2006; Tortora et al. 2009).”
The effects of gas on morphological transformation in mergers: implications for bulge and disc demographics (2009, background): “‘Quiescent’ (non-merger-driven) star formation dominates at all redshifts (see also Wolf et al. 2005; Menanteau et al. 2006; Hopkins et al. 2006; Noeske et al. 2007; Jogee et al. 2009).”
SUBMILLIMETER GALAXIES AS PROGENITORS OF COMPACT QUIESCENT GALAXIES (2014, background): “…gas-rich mergers at high redshift (Wuyts et al. 2010), in which the gas is driven to the center, igniting a massive nuclear starburst, followed by an AGN/QSO phase that quenches the star formation, and leaves behind a compact remnant (Sanders et al. 1988; Hopkins et al. 2006; Wuyts et al. 2010).”
The effect of galaxy mass ratio on merger-driven starbursts (2007, background): “Another possibility, which we reserve for future work, is to compile the full luminosity distribution for the entire merger as has been done previously by Jonsson (2004) and Hopkins et al. (2006).”
WHAT DOES A SUBMILLIMETER GALAXY SELECTION ACTUALLY SELECT? THE DEPENDENCE OF SUBMILLIMETER FLUX DENSITY ON STAR FORMATION RATE AND DUST MASS (2010, methodology): “A principal conclusion from these analyses is that while starbursts driven by gas-rich mergers can account for many instances of unusual activity in galaxies, they provide only a minor contribution to the star formation history of the universe (Hopkins et al. 2006c).”
GASP. I. Gas Stripping Phenomena in Galaxies with MUSE (2017, background): “…large-scale gas inflow in the galaxy central regions, such as gravitational torques due to galaxy mergers or interactions (Di Matteo et al. 2005; Hopkins et al. 2006)or disk instability due, for example, to high turbulent gas surface densities maintained by cold streams at high-z (Bournaud et…”