Supermassive black holes in cosmological simulations I: MBH − M⋆ relation and black hole mass function

Habouzit, Mélanie; Li, Yuan; Somerville, Rachel S; Genel, Shy; Pillepich, Annalisa; Volonteri, Marta; Davé, Romeel; Rosas-Guevara, Yetli; McAlpine, Stuart; Peirani, Sébastien; Hernquist, Lars; Anglés-Alcázar, Daniel; Reines, Amy; Bower, Richard; Dubois, Yohan; Nelson, Dylan; Pichon, Christophe; Vogelsberger, Mark

doi:10.1093/mnras/stab496

Supermassive black holes in cosmological simulations I: MBH − M⋆ relation and black hole mass function

Habouzit, Mélanie; Li, Yuan; Somerville, Rachel S; Genel, Shy; Pillepich, Annalisa; Volonteri, Marta; Davé, Romeel; Rosas-Guevara, Yetli; McAlpine, Stuart; Peirani, Sébastien; Hernquist, Lars; Anglés-Alcázar, Daniel; Reines, Amy; Bower, Richard; Dubois, Yohan; Nelson, Dylan; Pichon, Christophe; Vogelsberger, Mark

Authors

Mélanie Habouzit

Yuan Li

Rachel S Somerville

Shy Genel

Annalisa Pillepich

Marta Volonteri

Romeel Davé

Yetli Rosas-Guevara

Stuart McAlpine

Sébastien Peirani

Lars Hernquist

Daniel Anglés-Alcázar

Amy Reines

Richard Bower

Yohan Dubois

Dylan Nelson

Christophe Pichon

Mark Vogelsberger

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 MBH⩽107.5M⊙ in galaxies of M⋆∼1010.5−1011.5M⊙⁠. While the time evolution of the mean MBH − M⋆ relation is mild (⁠ΔMBH⩽1dex 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⋆⩽1010.5M⊙⁠. 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 MBH⩾109M⊙ in most of the simulations. The BH mass function is dominated by efficiently accreting BHs (⁠log10fEdd⩾−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.

Citation

Habouzit, M., Li, Y., Somerville, R. S., Genel, S., Pillepich, A., Volonteri, M., …Vogelsberger, M. (2021). Supermassive black holes in cosmological simulations I: MBH − M⋆ relation and black hole mass function. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 503(2), 1940-1975. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab496

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Feb 16, 2021
Online Publication Date	Feb 22, 2021
Publication Date	2021-05
Deposit Date	Jul 15, 2021
Publicly Available Date	Jul 15, 2021
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN	0035-8711
Electronic ISSN	1365-2966
Publisher	Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	503
Issue	2
Pages	1940-1975
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab496

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Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2021 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.