The clustering of X-ray AGN at 0.5 &amp;lt; z &amp;lt; 4.5: host galaxies dictate dark matter halo mass

Krishnan, Charutha; Almaini, O.; Hatch, N. A.; Wilkinson, Aaron; Maltby, David T.; Conselice, Christopher J.; Kocevski, Dale D.; Suh, Hyewon; Wild, Vivienne

doi:10.1093/mnras/staa815

Cited by 13 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 97 publications

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“…Our model does not extend to ∼ 0, where the observational data are shown in dark blue. We note in particular the good agreement with the = 1.5 − 2.0 results (from Krishnan et al 2020 andPowell et al 2020, shown in purple in the right panel), which do show a substantial rise in the absolute bias from X ∼ 10 44 − 10 45 erg s −1 . Figure 8.…”

Section: Comparison To Observed Agn Clustering Measurementssupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Mendez et al (2016) found that matching on stellar mass alone was insufficient and that the SFR distribution of the galaxy population needed to be matched as well. Krishnan et al (2020) showed that matching the passive fraction of galaxy samples (i.e. the SFRs) was key to explain the clustering of AGN samples to ∼ 2.…”

Section: The Clustering Of Agn Relative To Galaxiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The AGN–galaxy–halo connection: the distribution of AGN host halo masses to z = 2.5

Aird

Coil²

2021

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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It is widely reported, based on clustering measurements of observed active galactic nuclei (AGN) samples, that AGN reside in similar mass host dark matter halos across the bulk of cosmic time, with log $\mathcal {M}/\mathcal {M}_{\odot }\sim 12.5-13.0$ to z ∼ 2.5. We show that this is due in part to the AGN fraction in galaxies rising with increasing stellar mass, combined with AGN observational selection effects that exacerbate this trend. Here, we use AGN specific accretion rate distribution functions determined as a function of stellar mass and redshift for star-forming and quiescent galaxies separately, combined with the latest galaxy-halo connection models, to determine the parent and sub-halo mass distribution function of AGN to various observational limits. We find that while the median (sub-)halo mass of AGN, $\approx 10^{12}\mathcal {M}_{\odot }$, is fairly constant with luminosity, specific accretion rate, and redshift, the full halo mass distribution function is broad, spanning several orders of magnitude. We show that widely used methods to infer a typical dark matter halo mass based on an observed AGN clustering amplitude can result in biased, systematically high host halo masses. While the AGN satellite fraction rises with increasing parent halo mass, we find that the central galaxy is often not an AGN. Our results elucidate the physical causes for the apparent uniformity of AGN host halos across cosmic time and underscore the importance of accounting for AGN selection biases when interpreting observational AGN clustering results. We further show that AGN clustering is most easily interpreted in terms of the relative bias to galaxy samples, not from absolute bias measurements alone.

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Section: Comparison To Observed Agn Clustering Measurementssupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: The Clustering Of Agn Relative To Galaxiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The AGN–galaxy–halo connection: the distribution of AGN host halo masses to z = 2.5

Aird

Coil²

2021

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…In fact, this observation has been already recognised in the X-ray community (e.g. Leauthaud et al 2015;Mendez et al 2016;Powell et al 2018;Plionis et al 2018;Krishnan et al 2020). All these studies find no significant differences in the clustering properties of X-ray AGN compared to a matched galaxy sample.…”

Section: Qsos and The Dark Matter Halo Mass Functionsupporting

confidence: 57%

“…That is, X-ray AGN inhabit DM haloes that are consistent on average with the overall inactive galaxy population. This result runs from the local Universe (0.01 < z < 0.1; Powell et al 2018) to high redshifts, z 4.5 (Krishnan et al 2020). Studying narrow-line AGN, and comparing to a matched control samples of inactive galaxies, Li et al (2006) find that AGN have almost the same clustering amplitude as the control galaxies, on scales larger than a few Mpc.…”

Section: Qsos and The Dark Matter Halo Mass Functionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Their results suggest that the mass assembly history of dark haloes may play an additional role in the AGN activity in low-mass red galaxies. Interestingly, Krishnan et al (2020) note that the most important property in determining the AGN clustering signal is the fraction of AGN in passive host galaxies. This is true for our study as well using the inherent model.…”

Section: Host Galaxy Type For Eboss Qsosmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quasars at intermediate redshift are not special; but they are often satellites

Alam

Ross

Eftekharzadeh

et al. 2021

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Understanding the links between the activity of supermassive black holes (SMBH) at the centres of galaxies and their host dark matter haloes is a key question in modern astrophysics. The final data release of the SDSS-IV eBOSS provides the largest contemporary spectroscopic sample of galaxies and QSOs. Using this sample and covering the redshift interval z = 0.7 − 1.1, we have measured the clustering properties of the eBOSS QSOs, Emission Line Galaxies (ELGs) and Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs). We have also measured the fraction of QSOs as a function of the overdensity defined by the galaxy population. Using these measurements, we investigate how QSOs populate and sample the galaxy population, and how the host dark-matter haloes of QSOs sample the underlying halo distribution. We find that the probability of a galaxy hosting a QSO is independent of the host dark matter halo mass of the galaxy. We also find that about 60% of eBOSS QSOs are hosted by LRGs and about 20-40% of QSOs are hosted by satellite galaxies. We find a slight preference for QSOs to populate satellite galaxies over central galaxies. This is connected to the host halo mass distribution of different types of galaxies. Based on our analysis, QSOs should be hosted by a very broad distribution of haloes, and their occurrence should be modulated only by the efficiency of galaxy formation processes.

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The impact of AGN X-ray selection on the AGN halo occupation distribution

Powell,

Krumpe,

Coil

et al. 2024

A&A

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The connection between active galactic nuclei (AGN) and their host dark matter halos provides powerful insights into how supermassive black holes (SMBHs) grow and coevolve with their host galaxies. Here we investigate the impact of observational AGN selection on the AGN halo occupation distribution (HOD) by forward-modeling AGN activity into cosmological N-body simulations. By assuming straightforward relationships between the SMBH mass, galaxy mass, and (sub)halo mass, as well as a uniform broken power law distribution of Eddington ratios, we find that luminosity-limited AGN samples result in biased HOD shapes. While AGN defined by an Eddington ratio threshold produce AGN fractions that are flat across halo mass (unbiased by definition), luminosity-limited AGN fractions peak around galaxy-group-sized halo masses and then decrease with increasing halo mass. With higher luminosities, the rise of the AGN fraction starts at higher halo masses, the peak is shifted towards higher halo masses, and the decline at higher halo masses is more rapid. These results are consistent with recent HOD constraints from AGN clustering measurements, which find (1) characteristic halo mass scales of $ Vir $h^ M_ odot and (2) a shallower rise of the number of satellite AGN with increasing halo mass than for the overall galaxy population. Thus the observational biases due to AGN selection can naturally explain the constant, characteristic halo mass scale inferred from large-scale AGN clustering amplitudes over a range of redshifts, as well as the measured inconsistencies between AGN and galaxy HODs. We conclude that AGN selection biases can have significant impacts on the inferred AGN HOD, and can therefore lead to possible misinterpretations of how AGN populate dark matter halos and the AGN-host galaxy connection.

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The clustering of X-ray AGN at 0.5 < z < 4.5: host galaxies dictate dark matter halo mass

Cited by 13 publications

References 97 publications

The AGN–galaxy–halo connection: the distribution of AGN host halo masses to z = 2.5

The AGN–galaxy–halo connection: the distribution of AGN host halo masses to z = 2.5

Quasars at intermediate redshift are not special; but they are often satellites

The impact of AGN X-ray selection on the AGN halo occupation distribution

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