Off the beaten path: a new approach to realistically model the orbital decay of supermassive black holes in galaxy formation simulations

Tremmel, Michael; Governato, Fabio; Volonteri, Marta; Quinn, Thomas

doi:10.1093/mnras/stv1060

Cited by 162 publications

(218 citation statements)

References 74 publications

(81 reference statements)

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“…In addition to gravity, calibrated baryonic physics including star formation and evolution, cosmic UV background, supernovae feedback, primordial cooling, and SPH are used to govern the gas and stars. The SMBHs in R25 are implemented with realistic formation, dynamical friction-driven evolution, and accretion principles governed by local gas dynamics (Tremmel et al 2015(Tremmel et al , 2016. A Plummer equivalent force-softening length of 250 pc is used, of similar size to Sloane et al (2016), which is more than sufficient to resolve the local axion distribution on the kpc scale.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Signal Model for Axion Cavity Searches from N-body Simulations

Lentz

Quinn

Rosenberg

et al. 2017

ApJ

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Signal estimates for direct axion dark matter searches have used the isothermal sphere halo model for the last several decades. While insightful, the isothermal model does not capture effects from a halo's infall history nor the influence of baryonic matter, which has been shown to significantly influence a halo's inner structure. The high resolution of cavity axion detectors can make use of modern cosmological structure-formation simulations, which begin from realistic initial conditions, incorporate a wide range of baryonic physics, and are capable of resolving detailed structure. This letter uses a state-of-the-art cosmological N-body+Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics simulation to develop an improved signal model for axion cavity searches. Signal shapes from a class of galaxies encompassing the Milky Way are found to depart significantly from the isothermal sphere. A new signal model for axion detectors is proposed and projected sensitivity bounds on the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment data are presented.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Signal Model for Axion Cavity Searches from N-body Simulations

Lentz

Quinn

Rosenberg

et al. 2017

ApJ

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“…In merger simulations, the scattering is even more pronounced. Some of this scattering is a numerical artifact; it essentially does not occur in the gasoline simulations (except on small scales, which can be reduced with improved dynamical friction modeling; see Tremmel et al 2015).…”

Section: Methods: Ramsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of black hole growth in galaxy mergers with gasoline and ramses

Gabor

Capelo

Volonteri

et al. 2016

A&A

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Supermassive black hole dynamics during galaxy mergers is crucial in determining the rate of black hole mergers and cosmic black hole growth. As simulations achieve higher resolution, it becomes important to assess whether the black hole dynamics is influenced by the treatment of the interstellar medium in different simulation codes. We compare simulations of black hole growth in galaxy mergers with two codes: the smoothed particle hydrodynamics code gasoline, and the adaptive mesh refinement code ramses. We seek to identify predictions of these models that are robust despite differences in hydrodynamic methods and implementations of subgrid physics. We find that the general behavior is consistent between codes. Black hole accretion is minimal while the galaxies are well-separated (and even as they fly by within 10 kpc at the first pericenter). At late stages, when the galaxies pass within a few kpc, tidal torques drive nuclear gas inflow that triggers bursts of black hole accretion accompanied by star formation. We also note quantitative discrepancies that are model dependent: our ramses simulations show less star formation and black hole growth, and a smoother gas distribution with larger clumps and filaments than our gasoline simulations. We attribute these differences primarily to the subgrid models for black hole fueling, feedback, and gas thermodynamics. The main conclusion is that differences exist quantitatively between codes, and this should be kept in mind when making comparisons with observations. However, both codes capture the same dynamical behaviors in terms of triggering black hole accretion, star formation, and black hole dynamics, which is reassuring.

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“…Wurster & Thacker 2013) but this scheme is sufficient to compute the mass growth of "wellbehaved" central black holes in our simulations. We thus assume that dynamical friction is efficient enough to maintain black holes close to the center of galaxies but note that this may not properly capture the orbital decay of black holes in low mass galaxies and/or at high redshift (Tremmel et al 2015).…”

Section: Black Hole Dynamics and Mergersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gravitational torque-driven black hole growth and feedback in cosmological simulations

Anglés-Alcázar¹,

Davé

Faucher-Giguère

et al. 2016

Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

233

184

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We investigate black hole-host galaxy scaling relations in cosmological simulations with a self-consistent black hole growth and feedback model. The sub-grid accretion model captures the key scalings governing angular momentum transport from galactic scales down to parsec scales, while our kinetic feedback implementation enables the injection of outflows with properties chosen to match observed nuclear outflows. We show that "quasar mode" feedback can have a large impact on the thermal properties of the intergalactic medium and the growth of galaxies and massive black holes for kinetic feedback efficiencies as low as 0.1 % relative to the bolometric luminosity. Nonetheless, our simulations suggest that the black hole-host scaling relations are only weakly dependent on the effects of black hole feedback on galactic scales, owing to feedback suppressing the growth of galaxies and massive black holes by a similar amount. In contrast, the rate at which gravitational torques feed the central black hole relative to the host galaxy star formation rate governs the slope and normalization of the black hole-host correlations. Our results suggest that a common gas supply regulated by gravitational torques is the primary driver of the observed co-evolution of black holes and galaxies.

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Off the beaten path: a new approach to realistically model the orbital decay of supermassive black holes in galaxy formation simulations

Cited by 162 publications

References 74 publications

A New Signal Model for Axion Cavity Searches from N-body Simulations

A New Signal Model for Axion Cavity Searches from N-body Simulations

Comparison of black hole growth in galaxy mergers with gasoline and ramses

Gravitational torque-driven black hole growth and feedback in cosmological simulations

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