scholarly journals Black holes, cuspy atmospheres and galaxy formation

Author(s):  
James Binney

In cuspy atmospheres, jets driven by supermassive black holes (BHs) offset radiative cooling. The jets fire episodically, but often enough that the cuspy atmosphere does not move very far towards a cooling catastrophe in the intervals of jet inactivity. The ability of energy released on the sub–parsec scale of the BH to balance cooling on scales of several tens of kiloparsecs arises through a combination of the temperature sensitivity of the accretion rate and the way in which the radius of jet disruption varies with ambient density. Accretion of hot gas does not significantly increase BH masses, which are determined by periods of rapid BH growth and star formation when cold gas is briefly abundant at the galactic centre. Hot gas does not accumulate in shallow potential wells. As the Universe ages, deeper wells form, and eventually hot gas accumulates. This gas soon prevents the formation of further stars, since jets powered by the BH prevent it from cooling, and it mops up most cold infalling gas before many stars can form. Thus, BHs set the upper limit to the masses of galaxies. The formation of low–mass galaxies is inhibited by a combination of photoheating and supernova–driven galactic winds. Working in tandem, these mechanisms can probably explain the profound difference between the galaxy luminosity function and the mass function of dark haloes expected in the cold dark matter cosmology.

2019 ◽  
Vol 489 (1) ◽  
pp. 1436-1450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianhui Lian ◽  
Daniel Thomas ◽  
Cheng Li ◽  
Zheng Zheng ◽  
Claudia Maraston ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Within the standard model of hierarchical galaxy formation in a Λ cold dark matter universe, the environment of galaxies is expected to play a key role in driving galaxy formation and evolution. In this paper, we investigate whether and how the gas metallicity and the star formation surface density (ΣSFR) depend on galaxy environment. To this end, we analyse a sample of 1162 local, star-forming galaxies from the galaxy survey Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA). Generally, both parameters do not show any significant dependence on environment. However, in agreement with previous studies, we find that low-mass satellite galaxies are an exception to this rule. The gas metallicity in these objects increases while their ΣSFR decreases slightly with environmental density. The present analysis of MaNGA data allows us to extend this to spatially resolved properties. Our study reveals that the gas metallicity gradients of low-mass satellites flatten and their ΣSFR gradients steepen with increasing environmental density. By extensively exploring a chemical evolution model, we identify two scenarios that are able to explain this pattern: metal-enriched gas accretion or pristine gas inflow with varying accretion time-scales. The latter scenario better matches the observed ΣSFR gradients, and is therefore our preferred solution. In this model, a shorter gas accretion time-scale at larger radii is required. This suggests that ‘outside–in quenching’ governs the star formation processes of low-mass satellite galaxies in dense environments.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S245) ◽  
pp. 83-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Baldry ◽  
J. Liske ◽  
S. P. Driver ◽  

AbstractThe case is outlined for a new galaxy survey, including spectroscopy with AAOmega and sub-arcsecond multi-band imaging, that bridges a crucial gap between the SDSS and VVDS surveys. The science focus is to study structure and the relationship between matter and light on kpc-to-Mpc scales. The range of scales probed will enable direct constraints on the Cold Dark Matter model by: (1) measuring the halo mass function down to $10^{12}{\cal M}_{\odot}$ and its evolution to z ~ 0.4; (2) measuring the galaxy stellar mass function to very low mass limits of $10^{7}{\cal M}_{\odot}$ constraining baryonic feedback processes; and (3) quantifying the environment-dependent merger rate since z ~ 0.4. Here, we highlight the fact that the high-resolution imaging will enable the bulge-disk decomposition of ~200000 galaxies in u–K, providing a valuable resource for statistical studies of bulge properties.


2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (1) ◽  
pp. 279-301
Author(s):  
A Cattaneo ◽  
I Koutsouridou ◽  
E Tollet ◽  
J Devriendt ◽  
Y Dubois

ABSTRACT Dekel & Birnboim proposed that the mass-scale that separates late-type and early-type galaxies is linked to the critical halo mass $M_{\rm vir}^{\rm crit}$ for the propagation of a stable shock and showed that they could reproduce the observed bimodality scale for plausible values of the metallicity of the accreted gas Zaccr and the shock radius rs. Here, we take their analysis one step further and present a new semianalytic model that computes rs from first principles. This advancement allows us to compute $M_{\rm vir}^{\rm crit}$ individually for each halo. Separating cold-mode and hot-mode accretion has little effect on the final galaxy masses if feedback does not preferentially couple to the hot gas. We also present an improved model for stellar feedback where ${\sim }70{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the wind mass is in a cold galactic fountain with a shorter reaccretion time-scale at high masses. The latter is the key mechanism that allows us to reproduce the low-mass end of the mass function of galaxies over the entire redshift range 0 < z < 2.5. Cooling must be mitigated to avoid overpredicting the number density of galaxies with stellar mass $M_{\rm stars}\gt 10^{11}\, {\rm M}_\odot$ but is important to form intermediate-mass galaxies. At $M_{\rm vir}\gt 3\times 10^{11}\, {\rm M}_\odot$, cold accretion is more important at high z, where gas is accreted from smaller solid angles, but this is not true at lower masses because high-z filaments have lower metallicities. Our predictions are consistent with the observed metallicity evolution of the intergalactic medium at 0 < z < 5.


Author(s):  
Mélanie Habouzit ◽  
Yuan Li ◽  
Rachel S Somerville ◽  
Shy Genel ◽  
Annalisa Pillepich ◽  
...  

Abstract The past decade has seen significant progress in understanding galaxy formation and evolution using large-scale cosmological simulations. While these simulations produce galaxies in overall good agreement with observations, they employ different sub-grid models for galaxies and supermassive black holes (BHs). We investigate the impact of the sub-grid models on the BH mass properties of the Illustris, TNG100, TNG300, Horizon-AGN, EAGLE, and SIMBA simulations, focusing on the MBH − M⋆ relation and the BH mass function. All simulations predict tight MBH − M⋆ relations, and struggle to produce BHs of $M_{\rm BH}\leqslant 10^{7.5}\, \rm M_{\odot }$ in galaxies of $M_{\star }\sim 10^{10.5}-10^{11.5}\, \rm M_{\odot }$. While the time evolution of the mean MBH − M⋆ relation is mild ($\rm \Delta M_{\rm BH}\leqslant 1\, dex$ for 0 ≤ z ≤ 5) for all the simulations, its linearity (shape) and normalization varies from simulation to simulation. The strength of SN feedback has a large impact on the linearity and time evolution for $M_{\star }\leqslant 10^{10.5}\, \rm M_{\odot }$. We find that the low-mass end is a good discriminant of the simulation models, and highlights the need for new observational constraints. At the high-mass end, strong AGN feedback can suppress the time evolution of the relation normalization. Compared with observations of the local Universe, we find an excess of BHs with $M_{\rm BH}\geqslant 10^{9}\, \rm M_{\odot }$ in most of the simulations. The BH mass function is dominated by efficiently accreting BHs (log10 fEdd ≥ −2) at high redshifts, and transitions progressively from the high-mass to the low-mass end to be governed by inactive BHs. The transition time and the contribution of active BHs are different among the simulations, and can be used to evaluate models against observations.


Author(s):  
Joseph A O’Leary ◽  
Benjamin P Moster ◽  
Thorsten Naab ◽  
Rachel S Somerville

Abstract We explore the galaxy-galaxy merger rate with the empirical model for galaxy formation, emerge. On average, we find that between 2 per cent and 20 per cent of massive galaxies (log10(m*/M⊙) ≥ 10.3) will experience a major merger per Gyr. Our model predicts galaxy merger rates that do not scale as a power-law with redshift when selected by descendant stellar mass, and exhibit a clear stellar mass and mass-ratio dependence. Specifically, major mergers are more frequent at high masses and at low redshift. We show mergers are significant for the stellar mass growth of galaxies log10(m*/M⊙) ≳ 11.0. For the most massive galaxies major mergers dominate the accreted mass fraction, contributing as much as 90 per cent of the total accreted stellar mass. We reinforce that these phenomena are a direct result of the stellar-to-halo mass relation, which results in massive galaxies having a higher likelihood of experiencing major mergers than low mass galaxies. Our model produces a galaxy pair fraction consistent with recent observations, exhibiting a form best described by a power-law exponential function. Translating these pair fractions into merger rates results in an inaccurate prediction compared to the model intrinsic values when using published observation timescales. We find the pair fraction can be well mapped to the intrinsic merger rate by adopting an observation timescale that decreases linearly with redshift as Tobs = −0.36(1 + z) + 2.39 [Gyr], assuming all observed pairs merge by z = 0.


Author(s):  
Andrew J. Benson

There is now good observational evidence that some type of feedback process must operate within galaxies. Such a process has long been thought to exist on the basis of theoretical studies of galaxy formation. This feedback is responsible for regulating the rate of star formation and thereby preventing the formation of an overabundance of low–mass galaxies. There is gathering evidence that this feedback process must somehow involve the supermassive black holes thought to dwell in the centres of galaxies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 650 ◽  
pp. A113
Author(s):  
Margot M. Brouwer ◽  
Kyle A. Oman ◽  
Edwin A. Valentijn ◽  
Maciej Bilicki ◽  
Catherine Heymans ◽  
...  

We present measurements of the radial gravitational acceleration around isolated galaxies, comparing the expected gravitational acceleration given the baryonic matter (gbar) with the observed gravitational acceleration (gobs), using weak lensing measurements from the fourth data release of the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS-1000). These measurements extend the radial acceleration relation (RAR), traditionally measured using galaxy rotation curves, by 2 decades in gobs into the low-acceleration regime beyond the outskirts of the observable galaxy. We compare our RAR measurements to the predictions of two modified gravity (MG) theories: modified Newtonian dynamics and Verlinde’s emergent gravity (EG). We find that the measured relation between gobs and gbar agrees well with the MG predictions. In addition, we find a difference of at least 6σ between the RARs of early- and late-type galaxies (split by Sérsic index and u − r colour) with the same stellar mass. Current MG theories involve a gravity modification that is independent of other galaxy properties, which would be unable to explain this behaviour, although the EG theory is still limited to spherically symmetric static mass models. The difference might be explained if only the early-type galaxies have significant (Mgas ≈ M⋆) circumgalactic gaseous haloes. The observed behaviour is also expected in Λ-cold dark matter (ΛCDM) models where the galaxy-to-halo mass relation depends on the galaxy formation history. We find that MICE, a ΛCDM simulation with hybrid halo occupation distribution modelling and abundance matching, reproduces the observed RAR but significantly differs from BAHAMAS, a hydrodynamical cosmological galaxy formation simulation. Our results are sensitive to the amount of circumgalactic gas; current observational constraints indicate that the resulting corrections are likely moderate. Measurements of the lensing RAR with future cosmological surveys (such as Euclid) will be able to further distinguish between MG and ΛCDM models if systematic uncertainties in the baryonic mass distribution around galaxies are reduced.


2019 ◽  
Vol 623 ◽  
pp. A84 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Clark ◽  
M. E. Lohr ◽  
L. R. Patrick ◽  
F. Najarro

The Arches is one of the youngest, densest and most massive clusters in the Galaxy. As such it provides a unique insight into the lifecycle of the most massive stars known and the formation and survival of such stellar aggregates in the extreme conditions of the Galactic Centre. In a previous study we presented an initial stellar census for the Arches and in this work we expand upon this, providing new and revised classifications for ∼30% of the 105 spectroscopically identified cluster members as well as distinguishing potential massive runaways. The results of this survey emphasise the homogeneity and co-evality of the Arches and confirm the absence of H-free Wolf-Rayets of WC sub-type and predicted luminosities. The increased depth of our complete dataset also provides significantly better constraints on the main sequence population; with the identification of O9.5 V stars for the first time we now spectroscopically sample stars with initial masses ranging from ∼16 M⊙ to ≥120 M⊙. Indeed, following from our expanded stellar census we might expect ≳50 stars within the Arches to have been born with masses ≳60 M⊙, while all 105 spectroscopically confirmed cluster members are massive enough to leave relativistic remnants upon their demise. Moreover the well defined observational properties of the main sequence cohort will be critical to the construction of an extinction law appropriate for the Galactic Centre and consequently the quantitative analysis of the Arches population and subsequent determination of the cluster initial mass function.


2001 ◽  
Vol 563 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weihsueh A. Chiu ◽  
Nickolay Y. Gnedin ◽  
Jeremiah P. Ostriker

2020 ◽  
Vol 499 (1) ◽  
pp. 631-652
Author(s):  
J A Vázquez-Mata ◽  
J Loveday ◽  
S D Riggs ◽  
I K Baldry ◽  
L J M Davies ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT How do galaxy properties (such as stellar mass, luminosity, star formation rate, and morphology) and their evolution depend on the mass of their host dark matter halo? Using the Galaxy and Mass Assembly group catalogue, we address this question by exploring the dependence on host halo mass of the luminosity function (LF) and stellar mass function (SMF) for grouped galaxies subdivided by colour, morphology, and central/satellite. We find that spheroidal galaxies in particular dominate the bright and massive ends of the LF and SMF, respectively. More massive haloes host more massive and more luminous central galaxies. The satellites LF and SMF, respectively, show a systematic brightening of characteristic magnitude, and increase in characteristic mass, with increasing halo mass. In contrast to some previous results, the faint-end and low-mass slopes show little systematic dependence on halo mass. Semi-analytic models and simulations show similar or enhanced dependence of central mass and luminosity on halo mass. Faint and low-mass simulated satellite galaxies are remarkably independent of halo mass, but the most massive satellites are more common in more massive groups. In the first investigation of low-redshift LF and SMF evolution in group environments, we find that the red/blue ratio of galaxies in groups has increased since redshift z ≈ 0.3 relative to the field population. This observation strongly suggests that quenching of star formation in galaxies as they are accreted into galaxy groups is a significant and ongoing process.


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