Journal article
Evidence for non-merger co-evolution of galaxies and their supermassive black holes
- Abstract:
- Recent observational and theoretical studies have suggested that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) grow mostly through non-merger (‘secular’) processes. Since galaxy mergers lead to dynamical bulge growth, the only way to observationally isolate non-merger growth is to study galaxies with low bulge-to-total mass ratio (e.g. B/T < 10 per cent). However, bulge growth can also occur due to secular processes, such as disc instabilities, making disc-dominated selections a somewhat incomplete way to select merger-free systems. Here we use the Horizon-AGN simulation to select simulated galaxies which have not undergone a merger since z = 2, regardless of bulge mass, and investigate their location on typical black hole-galaxy scaling relations in comparison to galaxies with merger dominated histories. While the existence of these correlations has long been interpreted as co-evolution of galaxies and their SMBHs driven by galaxy mergers, we show here that they persist even in the absence of mergers. We find that the correlations between SMBH mass and both total mass and stellar velocity dispersion are independent of B/T ratio for both merger-free and merger-dominated galaxies. In addition, the bulge mass and SMBH mass correlation is still apparent for merger-free galaxies, the intercept for which is dependent on B/T. Galaxy mergers reduce the scatter around the scaling relations, with merger-free systems showing broader scatter. We show that for merger-free galaxies, the co-evolution is dominated by radio-mode feedback, and suggest that the long periods of time between galaxy mergers make an important contribution to the co-evolution between galaxies and SMBHs in all galaxies.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 7.6MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1093/mnras/stad1794
Authors
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Journal:
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society More from this journal
- Volume:
- 527
- Issue:
- 4
- Pages:
- 10855-10866
- Publication date:
- 2023-06-22
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-02-13
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1365-2966
- ISSN:
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0035-8711
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1612480
- Local pid:
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pubs:1612480
- Deposit date:
-
2024-04-25
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Smethurst et al
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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