Active galactic nuclei (AGN) probably control the growth of their host galaxies via feedback in the form of wide-angle wind-driven outflows. These establish the observed correlations between supermassive black hole (SMBH) masses and host galaxy properties, e.g. the spheroid velocity dispersion $σ$. In this paper we consider the growth of the SMBH once it starts driving a large-scale outflow through the galaxy. To clear the gas and ultimately terminate further growth of both the SMBH and the host galaxy, the black hole must continue to grow its mass significantly, by up to a factor of a few, after reaching this point. The mass increment $ΔM_{\rm BH}$ depends sensitively on both galaxy size and SMBH spin. The galaxy size dependence leads to $ΔM_{\rm BH} \propto σ^5$ and a steepening of the $M-σ$ relation beyond the analytically calculated $M \propto σ^4$, in agreement with observation. Slowly--spinning black holes are much less efficient in producing feedback, so at any given $σ$ the slowest--spinning black holes should be the most massive. Current observational constraints are consistent with this picture, but insufficient to test it properly; however, this should change with upcoming surveys.
Our Galaxy and the nearby Andromeda galaxy (M31) are the most massive members of the Local Group, and they seem to be a bound pair, despite the uncertainties on the relative motion of the two galaxies. A number of studies have shown that the two galaxies will likely undergo a close approach in the next 4$-$5 Gyr. We used direct $N$-body simulations to model this interaction to shed light on the future of the Milky Way - Andromeda system and for the first time explore the fate of the two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that are located at their centers. We investigated how the uncertainties on…
In the past three decades, many stars orbiting about the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the Galactic Centre (Sgr A*) were identified. Their orbital nature can give stringent constraints for the mass of the SMBH. In particular, the star S2 has completed at least one period since our first detection of its position, which can provide rich information to examine the properties of the SMBH, and the astrophysical environment surrounding the SMBH. Here, we report an interesting phenomenon that if a significant amount of dark matter or stellar mass is distributed around the SMBH, the precession sp…
[abridged] We study how mock-observed stellar morphological and structural properties of massive galaxies are built up between $z=0.5$ and $z=3$ in the TNG50 cosmological simulation. We generate mock images with the properties of the CANDELS survey and derive Sersic parameters and optical rest-frame morphologies as usually done in the observations. Overall, the simulation reproduces the observed evolution of the abundances of different galaxy morphological types of star-forming and quiescent galaxies. The $\log{M_*}-\log R_e$ and $\log{M_*}-\logΣ_1$ relations of the simulated star-forming and …
We simulate shells created by supernovae expanding into the interstellar medium (ISM) of the nuclear region of a galaxy, and analyze how the shell evolution is influenced by the supernova (SN) position relative to the galactic center, by the interstellar matter (ISM) density, and by the combined gravitational pull of the nuclear star cluster (NSC) and supermassive black hole (SMBH).We adopted simplified hydrodynamical simulations using the infinitesimally thin layer approximation in 3D (code RING) and determined whether and where the shell expansion may bring new gas into the inner parsec arou…
Extremely massive black holes, with masses $M_{\rm BH} > 10^9 M_\odot$, have been observed at ever higher redshifts. These results create ever tighter constraints on the formation and growth mechanisms of early black holes. Here we show that even the most extreme black hole known, Pōniuā'ena, can grow from a $10 M_\odot$ seed black hole via Eddington-limited luminous accretion, provided that accretion proceeds almost continuously, but is composed of a large number of episodes with individually-uncorrelated initial directions. This chaotic accretion scenario ensures that the growing black hole …
The center of our Galaxy is known to host a massive compact object, Sgr A$^*$, which is commonly considered as a super-massive black hole of $\sim 4\times 10^6$ M$_\odot$. It is surrounded by a dense and massive nuclear star cluster, with a half mass radius about $5$~pc and a mass larger than $10^{7}$ M$_\odot$. In this paper we studied the evolutionary fate of a very dense cluster of intermediate mass black holes, possible remnants of the dissipative orbital evolution of massive globular cluster hosts. We performed a set of high precision $N$-body simulations taking into account deviations fr…
Binary supermassive black holes (SMBH) are expected to form naturally during galaxy mergers. After the dynamical friction phase, when the two SMBHs become gravitationally bound to each other, and a brief stage of initial rapid hardening, the orbit gradually continues to shrink due to three-body interactions with stars that enter the loss cone of the binary. Using the stellar-dynamical Monte Carlo code Raga, we explore the co-evolution of the binary SMBH and the nuclear star cluster in this slow stage, for various combinations of parameters (geometry of the star cluster, primary/secondary SMBH …
Observations of massive galaxies at low redshift have revealed approximately linear scaling relations between the mass of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) and properties of its host galaxy. How these scaling relations evolve with redshift and whether they extend to lower-mass galaxies however remain open questions. Recent galaxy formation simulations predict a delayed, or "two-phase", growth of SMBHs: slow, highly intermittent BH growth due to repeated gas ejection by stellar feedback in low-mass galaxies, followed by more sustained gas accretion that eventually brings BHs onto the local scali…
Submillimetre and millimetre observations are important in probing the properties of the molecular gas and dust around obscured active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and their feedback. With very high-resolution (0."02x0."03 (2x3 pc)) ALMA 345 GHz observations of CO 3-2, HCO$^+$ 4-3, HCN 4-3 $ν_2$=1$f$, and continuum we have studied the molecular outflow and nucleus of the extremely radio-quiet lenticular galaxy NGC1377. The outflow is resolved, revealing a 150 pc long, clumpy, high-velocity, collimated molecular jet. The molecular emission is emerging from the spine of the jet with an average diamete…
Predicting Potential Host Galaxies of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries Based on Stellar Kinematics in Archival IFU Surveys
Bishop’s University（主教大学）；Trottier Space Institute and Department of Physics, McGill University（麦吉尔大学特鲁蒂尔太空研究所和物理系）；California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；Vanderbilt University（范德堡大学）
We studied the final phases of galactic mergers, focusing on interactions between supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the interstellar medium in a central sub-kpc region, using an N-body/hydrodynamics code. This numerical experiment aims to understand the fate of the gas supplied by mergers of two or more galaxies with SMBHs, whose masses are $10^7 M_\odot$. We observed that the mass accretion rate to one SMBH exceeds the Eddington accretion rate when the distance between two black holes (BHs) rapidly decreases. However, this rapid accretion phase does not last for more than $10^7$ yrs, and i…
The existence of $\gtrsim10^9M_\odot$ supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at redshift $z>6$ raises the problem of how such SMBHs can grow up within the cosmic time ($<1$\,Gyr) from small seed BHs. In this letter, we use the observations of $14$ Quasars at $z>6.5$ with mass estimates to constrain their seeds and early growth, by self-consistently considering the spin evolution and the possibility of super-Eddington accretion. We find that spin plays an important role in the growth of early SMBHs, and the constraints on seed mass and super-Eddington accretion fraction strongly depend on the assumed…
There are increasing interests in binary supermassive black holes (SMBHs), but merging binaries with separations smaller than ~1 light days (~10^2 gravitational radii for 10^8 Msun), which are rapidly evolving under control of gravitational waves, are elusive in observations. In this paper, we discuss fates of mini-disks around component SMBHs for three regimes: 1) low rates (advection-dominated accretion flows: ADAFs); 2) intermediate rates; 3) super-Eddington accretion rates. Mini-disks with intermediate rates are undergoing evaporation through thermal conduction of hot corona forming a hybr…
We study the evolution of baryonic gas in cosmologically growing dark matter halos. To accurately model both the inner and outer regions of the halos, we use a dark matter density profile that transitions smoothly from the NFW profile within the virial radius to a more realistic flat profile far beyond the halo. We construct a dark matter gravitational potential consistent with this density profile, and we use a "cosmological" potential that accounts for gas evolution consistent with Hubble expansion at large radii. Gas is initialized with a density $\approx$ 0.2 times the dark matter density,…
Super-massive black holes (SMBHs) with $M_{\bullet} \sim 10^9 $ M$_{\odot}$ at $z>6$ likely originate from massive seed black holes (BHs). We investigate the consequences of seeding SMBHs with direct collapse BHs (DCBHs) ($M_{\bullet}=10^{4-6}\, \mathrm{M}_\odot$) on proto-galactic disc growth. We show that even in the absence of direct feedback effects, the growth of seed BHs reduces the development of gravitational instabilities in host galaxy discs, suppressing star formation and confining stars to a narrow ring in the disc and leading to galaxies at $z \sim 6$ which lie above the local BH-…
We examine the contribution of high-redshift (z>6) active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to cosmic hydrogen reionization, by tracing the growth and ionizing output of the first generation of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Our calculations are anchored to the observed population of z~6 quasars, and trace back the evolving spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of the accretion flows that power these early AGNs and consider a variety of growth histories, including super-Eddington accretion. Compared to a fixed-shape SED, the evolving thin disks can produce ionizing radiation that is higher by up to ~80…
BlackHoleWeather -- Spin-coupled chaotic cold accretion across the meso scale: Variability and kinematics
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia（摩德纳和雷焦艾米利亚大学）；Universidad de Santiago de Chile（智利圣地亚哥大学）；CIRAS, Universidad de Santiago de Chile（智利圣地亚哥大学 CIRAS）；Science and Technology Institute, Universities Space Research Association（美国大学空间研究协会科学与技术研究所）；NASA Ames Research Center（NASA 艾姆斯研究中心）；INAF – Astronomical Observatory of Rome（意大利国家天体物理研究所罗马天文台）；Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Diego Portales（迭戈·波特莱斯大学工程与科学学院天体物理研究所）
One of the most promising gravitational wave (GW) sources detectable by the forthcoming LISA observatory are the so-called extreme-mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs), i.e. GW-driven inspirals of stellar-mass compact objects onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs). In this paper, we suggest that supernova (SN) kicks may trigger EMRIs in galactic nuclei by scattering newborn stellar black holes and neutron stars on extremely eccentric orbits; as a consequence, the time-scale over which these compact objects are expected to inspiral onto the central SMBH via GW emission may become shorter than the time-s…
Growth of the black holes (BHs) from the seeds to supermassive BHs (SMBHs, $\sim\!10^9\,M_\odot$) is not understood, but the mass accretion must have played an important role. We performed two-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics simulations of line-driven disc winds considering the metallicity dependence in a wide range of the BH mass, and investigated the reduction of the mass accretion rate due to the wind mass loss. Our results show that denser and faster disc winds appear at higher metallicities and larger BH masses. The accretion rate is suppressed to $\sim\! 0.4$--$0.6$ times the mass su…
We present an analysis of deep $Chandra$ Low-Energy and High-Energy Transmission Grating archival observations of the extraordinarily luminous radio-quiet quasar H1821+643, hosted by a rich and massive cool-core cluster at redshift $z=0.3$. These datasets provide high-resolution spectra of the AGN at two epochs, free from contamination by the intracluster medium and from the effects of photon pile-up, providing a sensitive probe of the iron-$K$ band. At both epochs, the spectrum is well described by a power-law continuum plus X-ray reflection from both the inner accretion disc and cold, slowly…
