Black Hole Growth and Host Galaxy Morphology

AbstractWe use data from large surveys of the local universe (SDSS+Galaxy Zoo) to show that the galaxy–black hole connection is linked to host morphology at a fundamental level. The fraction of early-type galaxies with actively growing black holes, and therefore the AGN duty cycle, declines significantly with increasing black hole mass. Late-type galaxies exhibit the opposite trend: the fraction of actively growing black holes increases with black hole mass.

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Accretion and Outflow in Active Galaxies

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921310006484 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 5 (S267) ◽

pp. 273-282

Author(s):

Andrew King

Keyword(s):

Black Hole ◽

Large Scale ◽

Host Galaxy ◽

Small Scale ◽

Gas Flows ◽

Inverse Compton ◽

The Galaxy ◽

Black Hole Growth ◽

Lower Excitation ◽

Hole Growth

AbstractI review accretion and outflow in active galactic nuclei. Accreti4on appears to occur in a series of very small-scale, chaotic events, whose gas flows have no correlation with the large-scale structure of the galaxy or with each other. The accreting gas has extremely low specific angular momentum and probably represents only a small fraction of the gas involved in a galaxy merger, which may be the underlying driver.Eddington accretion episodes in AGN must be common in order for the supermassive black holes to grow. I show that they produce winds with velocities v ~ 0.1c and ionization parameters implying the presence of resonance lines of helium-like and hydrogen-like iron. The wind creates a strong cooling shock as it interacts with the interstellar medium of the host galaxy, and this cooling region may be observable in an inverse Compton continuum and lower-excitation emission lines associated with lower velocities. The shell of matter swept up by the shocked wind stalls unless the black hole mass has reached the value Mσ implied by the M–σ relation. Once this mass is reached, further black hole growth is prevented. If the shocked gas did not cool as asserted above, the resulting (“energy-driven”) outflow would imply a far smaller SMBH mass than actually observed. Minor accretion events with small gas fractions can produce galaxy-wide outflows, including fossil outflows in galaxies where there is little current AGN activity.

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The Distribution and Evolution of Black Hole Mass in Broad Line Quasars

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s174392131000640x ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 5 (S267) ◽

pp. 263-263

Author(s):

Brandon C. Kelly ◽

Marianne Vestergaard ◽

Xiaohui Fan ◽

Lars Hernquist ◽

Philip Hopkins ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Mass Function ◽

Sloan Digital Sky Survey ◽

Broad Line ◽

Black Hole Mass ◽

Sky Survey ◽

Black Hole Growth ◽

Hole Growth ◽

Eddington Limit

We present the first estimate of the black hole mass function (BHMF) of broad-line quasars (BLQSOs) that self-consistently corrects for incompleteness and the statistical uncertainty in the mass estimates, based on a sample of 9886 quasars at 1 < z < 4.5 drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find evidence for “cosmic downsizing” of black holes in BLQSOs, where the peak in their number density shifts to higher redshift with increasing black hole mass. We estimate the lifetime of the BLQSO phase to be 70 ± 5 Myr for supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at z = 1 with a mass of MBH = 109M⊙, and we constrain the maximum mass of a black hole in a BLQSO to be ~ 1010M⊙. We find that most BLQSOs are not radiating at or near the Eddington limit. Our results are consistent with models for self-regulated black hole growth, where the BLQSO phase occurs at the end of a fueling event when black hole feedback unbinds the accreting gas.

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The Black Hole Mass Distribution in Early-Type Galaxies: Cusps in [ITAL]Hubble Space Telescope[/ITAL] Photometry Interpreted through Adiabatic Black Hole Growth

The Astronomical Journal ◽

10.1086/300730 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 117 (2) ◽

pp. 744-763 ◽

Cited By ~ 92

Author(s):

Roeland P. van der Marel

Keyword(s):

Black Hole ◽

Mass Distribution ◽

Hubble Space Telescope ◽

Early Type ◽

Black Hole Mass ◽

Space Telescope ◽

Black Hole Growth ◽

Hole Growth

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Mass transport in galaxy discs limits black hole growth to sub-Eddington rates

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/stz1861 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 488 (2) ◽

pp. 2006-2017

Author(s):

Daniel S Eastwood ◽

Sadegh Khochfar ◽

Arthur Trew

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Extreme Case ◽

Big Bang ◽

Limiting Factor ◽

Black Hole Mass ◽

Host Galaxies ◽

Orbital Parameters ◽

Black Hole Growth ◽

Hole Growth

ABSTRACT Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) observed to have masses of $M_\bullet \sim 10^9 \, \mathrm{M_\odot }$ at z ≳ 6, <1 Gyr after the big bang, are thought to have been seeded by massive black holes that formed before growing concurrently with the formation of their host galaxies. We model analytically the idealized growth of seed black holes, fed through gas inflow from growing proto-galaxy discs. The inflow depends on the disc gravitational stability and thus varies with black hole and disc mass. We find that for a typical host halo, the efficiency of angular momentum transport, as parametrized by the disc viscosity, is the limiting factor in determining the inflow rate and the black hole accretion rate. For our fiducial case, we find an upper black hole mass estimate of $M_\bullet \sim 1.8 \times 10^7 \, \mathrm{M_{\odot }}$ at z = 6. Only in the extreme case of ∼1016 M⊙ haloes at z = 6 produces SMBH masses of ∼109 M⊙. However, the number density of such haloes is many orders of magnitude below the estimated 1 Gpc−3 of SMBHs at z = 6, indicating that viscosity driven accretion is too inefficient to feed the growth of seeds into $M_\bullet \sim 10^9 \, \mathrm{M_\odot }$ SMBHs by z ∼ 6. We demonstrate that major mergers are capable of resolving the apparent discrepancy in black hole mass at z = 6, with some dependence on the exact choice of orbital parameters of the merger.

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The Multiwavelength AGN Population and the X-ray Background

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921314003731 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 9 (S304) ◽

pp. 188-194

Author(s):

Ezequiel Treister ◽

Claudia M. Urry ◽

Kevin Schawinski ◽

Brooke D. Simmons ◽

Priyamvada Natarajan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Mass Density ◽

Large Fraction ◽

Supermassive Black Holes ◽

X Rays ◽

X Ray ◽

Black Hole Growth ◽

Hole Growth ◽

X Ray Background

AbstractIn order to fully understand galaxy formation we need to know when in the cosmic history are supermassive black holes (SMBHs) growing more intensively, in what type of galaxies this growth is happening and what fraction of these sources are invisible at most wavelengths due to obscuration. Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) population synthesis models that can explain the spectral shape and intensity of the cosmic X-ray background (CXRB) indicate that most of the SMBH growth occurs in moderate-luminosity (LX~ 1044 erg/s) sources (Seyfert-type AGN), at z~ 0.5−1 and in heavily obscured but Compton-thin, NH~ 1023cm−2, systems. However, this is not the complete history, as a large fraction of black hole growth does not emit significantly in X-rays either due to obscuration, intrinsic low luminosities or large distances. The integrated intensity at high energies indicates that a significant fraction of the total black hole growth, 22%, occurs in heavily-obscured systems that are not individually detected in even the deepest X-ray observations. We further investigate the AGN triggering mechanism as a function of bolometric luminosity, finding evidence for a strong connection between significant black hole growth events and major galaxy mergers from z~ 0 to z~ 3, while less spectacular but longer accretion episodes are most likely due to other (stochastic) processes. AGN activity triggered by major galaxies is responsible for ~60% of the total black hole growth. Finally, we constrain the total accreted mass density in supermassive black holes at z > 6, inferred via the upper limit derived from the integrated X-ray emission from a sample of photometrically selected galaxy candidates. We estimate an accreted mass density <1000 M⊙Mpc−3 at z~ 6, significantly lower than the previous predictions from some existing models of early black hole growth and earlier prior observations.

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CONSTRAINTS ON BLACK HOLE GROWTH, QUASAR LIFETIMES, AND EDDINGTON RATIO DISTRIBUTIONS FROM THE SDSS BROAD-LINE QUASAR BLACK HOLE MASS FUNCTION

The Astrophysical Journal ◽

10.1088/0004-637x/719/2/1315 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 719 (2) ◽

pp. 1315-1334 ◽

Cited By ~ 134

Author(s):

Brandon C. Kelly ◽

Marianne Vestergaard ◽

Xiaohui Fan ◽

Philip Hopkins ◽

Lars Hernquist ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Hole ◽

Mass Function ◽

Broad Line ◽

Black Hole Mass ◽

Black Hole Growth ◽

Hole Growth

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The clustering of undetected high-redshift black holes and their signatures in cosmic backgrounds

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/stz1891 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 489 (1) ◽

pp. 1006-1022 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Angelo Ricarte ◽

Fabio Pacucci ◽

Nico Cappelluti ◽

Priyamvada Natarajan

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Mass Density ◽

High Redshift ◽

X Ray ◽

Black Hole Growth ◽

Infrared Background ◽

Hydrodynamical Simulations ◽

Hole Growth ◽

Rule Out

ABSTRACT There exist hitherto unexplained fluctuations in the cosmic infrared background on arcminute scales and larger. These have been shown to cross-correlate with the cosmic X-ray background, leading several authors to attribute the excess to a high-redshift growing black hole population. In order to investigate potential sources that could explain this excess, in this paper, we develop a new framework to compute the power spectrum of undetected sources that do not have constant flux as a function of halo mass. In this formulation, we combine a semi-analytic model for black hole growth and their simulated spectra from hydrodynamical simulations. Revisiting the possible contribution of a high-redshift black hole population, we find that too much black hole growth is required at early epochs for z > 6 accretion to explain these fluctuations. Examining a population of accreting black holes at more moderate redshifts, z ∼ 2–3, we find that such models produce a poor fit to the observed fluctuations while simultaneously overproducing the local black hole mass density. Additionally, we rule out the hypothesis of a missing Galactic foreground of warm dust that produces coherent fluctuations in the X-ray via reflection of Galactic X-ray binary emission. Although we firmly rule out accreting massive black holes as the source of these missing fluctuations, additional studies will be required to determine their origin.

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Secularly powered outflows from AGNs: the dominance of non-merger driven supermassive black hole growth

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/stz2443 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 489 (3) ◽

pp. 4016-4031 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

R J Smethurst ◽

B D Simmons ◽

C J Lintott ◽

J Shanahan

Keyword(s):

Black Hole ◽

Galaxy Evolution ◽

Narrow Band ◽

Narrow Band Imaging ◽

Black Hole Accretion ◽

Accretion Rates ◽

The Galaxy ◽

Black Hole Growth ◽

Outflow Rate ◽

Hole Growth

ABSTRACT Recent observations and simulations have revealed the dominance of secular processes over mergers in driving the growth of both supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and galaxy evolution. Here, we obtain narrow-band imaging of AGN powered outflows in a sample of 12 galaxies with disc-dominated morphologies, whose history is assumed to be merger-free. We detect outflows in 10/12 sources in narrow-band imaging of the $\mathrm{[O\, \small {III}] }$ $5007~\mathring{\rm A}$ emission using filters on the Shane-3m telescope. We calculate a mean outflow rate for these AGNs of $0.95\pm 0.14~\rm {M}_{\odot }~\rm {yr}^{-1}$. This exceeds the mean accretion rate of their SMBHs ($0.054\pm 0.039~\rm {M}_{\odot }~\rm {yr}^{-1}$) by a factor of 18. Assuming that the galaxy must provide at least enough material to power both the AGN and outflow, this gives a lower limit on the average inflow rate of $1.01\pm 0.14~\rm {M}_{\odot }~\rm {yr}^{-1}$, a rate which simulations show can be achieved by bars, spiral arms, and cold accretion. We compare our disc-dominated sample to a sample of nearby AGNs with merger dominated histories and show that the black hole accretion rates in our sample are five times higher (4.2σ) and the outflow rates are five times lower (2.6σ). We suggest that this could be a result of the geometry of the smooth, planar inflow in a secular dominated system, which is both spinning up the black hole to increase accretion efficiency and less affected by feedback from the outflow, than in a merger-driven system with chaotic quasi-spherical inflows. This work provides further evidence that secular processes are sufficient to fuel SMBH growth.

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