Merger Histories and Environments of Dwarf AGN in IllustrisTNG

Kristensen, Mikkel Theiss; Pimbblet, Kevin A.; Gibson, Brad K.; Koudmani, Sophie

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac236d

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…Yet, no significant dependence of AGN activity with galaxy interactions nor environment has been found for dwarf galaxies at z≤ 0.055 (Bradford et al 2018;Manzano-King & Canalizo 2020;Kristensen et al 2020) and out to z < 0.5 (Davis et al 2022). In particular, Kristensen et al (2021) find that non-AGN dwarf galaxies in the Illustris simulation tend to have been residing in dense environments for long times, while galaxies with intermediate AGN activity have commonly been in a recent (≤ 4 Gyr) minor merger. The recent finding of AGN in isolated and quiescent dwarf galaxies seems instead to indicate that AGN feedback rather than a dense environment is responsible for quenching star formation in these galaxies (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

The environment of AGN dwarf galaxies at z ∼ 0.7 from the VIPERS survey

Siudek

Mezcua

Krywult

2022

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Dwarf galaxies are ideal laboratories to study the relationship between the environment and AGN activity. However, the type of environments in which dwarf galaxies hosting AGN reside is still unclear and limited to low-redshift studies ($\rm {z<0.5}$). We use the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS) to investigate, for the first time, their environments at $0.5<\rm {z}<0.9$. We select a sample of 12,942 low-mass ($\rm {log}(M_\mathrm{*}/M_{\odot })\le 10$) galaxies and use the emission-line diagnostic diagram to identify AGN. We characterise their local environments as the galaxy density contrast, δ, derived from the fifth nearest neighbour method. Our work demonstrates that AGN and non-AGN dwarf galaxies reside in similar environments at intermediate redshift suggesting that the environment is not an important factor in triggering AGN activity already since $\rm {z=0.9}$. Dwarf galaxies show a strong preference for low-density environments, independently of whether they host an AGN or not. Their properties do not change when moving to denser environments, suggesting that dwarf galaxies are not gas-enriched due to environmental effects. Moreover, AGN presence does not alter host properties supporting the scenario that AGN feedback does not impact the star formation of the host. Lastly, AGN are found to host over-massive black holes. This is the first study of dwarf galaxies hosting AGN at $\rm {z>0.5}$. The next generation of deep surveys will reveal whether or not such lack of environmental trends is common also for faint higher-redshift dwarf galaxy populations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

The environment of AGN dwarf galaxies at z ∼ 0.7 from the VIPERS survey

Siudek

Mezcua

Krywult

2022

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…The level of activity likely depends on the merger history of the dwarf galaxy. Kristensen et al (2021) find that inactive dwarf galaxies in the Illustris simulations tend to have been residing in dense environments for long times, while active galaxies had commonly been in a recent (4 Gyr) minor merger.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Variability-selected Intermediate-mass Black Hole Candidates in Dwarf Galaxies from ZTF and WISE

Ward

Gezari

Nugent

et al. 2022

ApJ

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While it is difficult to observe the first black hole seeds in the early universe, we can study intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in local dwarf galaxies for clues about their origins. In this paper we present a sample of variability-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) in dwarf galaxies using optical photometry from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and forward-modeled mid-IR photometry of time-resolved Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) co-added images. We found that 44 out of 25,714 dwarf galaxies had optically variable AGN candidates and 148 out of 79,879 dwarf galaxies had mid-IR variable AGN candidates, corresponding to active fractions of 0.17% ± 0.03% and 0.19% ± 0.02%, respectively. We found that spectroscopic approaches to AGN identification would have missed 81% of our ZTF IMBH candidates and 69% of our WISE IMBH candidates. Only nine candidates have been detected previously in radio, X-ray, and variability searches for dwarf galaxy AGN. The ZTF and WISE dwarf galaxy AGN with broad Balmer lines have virial masses of 105 M ⊙ < M BH < 107 M ⊙, but for the rest of the sample, BH masses predicted from host galaxy mass range between 105.2 M ⊙ < M BH < 107.25 M ⊙. We found that only 5 of 152 previously reported variability-selected AGN candidates from the Palomar Transient Factory in common with our parent sample were variable in ZTF. We also determined a nuclear supernova fraction of 0.05% ± 0.01% yr−1 for dwarf galaxies in ZTF. Our ZTF and WISE IMBH candidates show the promise of variability searches for the discovery of otherwise hidden low-mass AGN.

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“…Recent works have focused on the population of massive BHs hosted in local dwarf galaxies, trying to pinpoint the eventual imprint of high-z seeding processes on the local scaling relations between massive BHs and their hosts (see e.g., Habouzit et al 2017;Mezcua 2017;Martín-Navarro & Mezcua 2018;Kristensen et al 2021). To explore this, in Fig.…”

Section: Bh Occupation and M * -M Bh Scaling Relationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-flavour SMBH seeding and evolution in cosmological environments

Spinoso¹,

Bonoli²,

Valiante³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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We study the genesis, environment and growth of super-massive black hole (SMBH) seeds from different formation channels, from PopIII remnants to massive seeds, modeled within the L-Galaxies semi-analytic code. We run the model on the merger trees of the Millennium-II simulation (MR-II), as its high halo-mass resolution (M vir,res ∼ 10 7 M h −1 ) allows to study in a relatively large cosmological volume (L box = 100 Mpc h −1 ) the evolution of atomiccooling halos (T vir 10 4 K) where intermediate-mass and heavy seeds are expected to form. We track the formation of these seeds according to the background and the local variations of the chemical enrichment and the UV-flux produced by star formation. Not being able to resolve the first mini-halos (T vir ∼10 3 K), we account for the formation of PopIII remnants in a sub-grid fashion, using the results of the GQd model. We find that the descendants of light seeds numerically dominate among the population of SMBHs at all masses and z. The much rarer intermediate-mass and heavy seeds form in dense environments where close neighbors provide the required UV illumination. We also include the formation of heavy seeds in the mergers of gas-rich massive galaxies, who are also very rare in the MR-II volume. We then track the evolution through gas accretion and mergers of this multi-flavour population of black hole seeds down to the local Universe. Our model produces a z=0 population of SMBHs whose statistical properties meet current constraints. In the dwarf-mass regime, where observations are still scarce, we predict that the scaling relation between BH and stellar mass is flatter than in the high-mass range. We also find that the BH occupation fraction highly depends on the seeding efficiency. Finally, a fraction of BHs hosted in dwarf galaxies at z = 0 never grow since their formation at z > 6. This supports the idea that some local low-mass systems might harbour central compact objects which are remnant of the high-z BH-formation processes.

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Merger Histories and Environments of Dwarf AGN in IllustrisTNG

Cited by 11 publications

References 86 publications

The environment of AGN dwarf galaxies at z ∼ 0.7 from the VIPERS survey

The environment of AGN dwarf galaxies at z ∼ 0.7 from the VIPERS survey

Variability-selected Intermediate-mass Black Hole Candidates in Dwarf Galaxies from ZTF and WISE

Multi-flavour SMBH seeding and evolution in cosmological environments

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