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The Cosmological History of Accretion onto Supermassive Black Holes

Abstract:
It is argued that supermassive black holes in the nuclei of galaxies most likely have grown coevally with their host dark matter halos. A calculation based on Press-Schechter within this framework shows that the mean rate of accretion of matter onto such black holes varies from a value about 0.003 of the Eddington rate at the present epoch to a value around 0.08 at redshift 3. The bulk of AGN evolution may be explained as a reflection of the diminishing rate of accretion of material onto galaxies. The result is almost independent of mass of host dark matter halo and is only weakly dependent on the values of cosmological parameters. At high redshifts, z greater than about 5, black holes in galaxies would have been accreting close to the Eddington limit, which is likely to lead to galactic outflows being ubiquitous at those epochs.
Publication status:
Published

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Publisher copy:
10.1051/0004-6361:20064945

Authors


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Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MPLS
Department:
Physics
Sub department:
Astrophysics
Role:
Author


Journal:
ASTRONOMY and ASTROPHYSICS More from this journal
Volume:
459
Issue:
1
Pages:
43-+
Publication date:
2005-06-24
DOI:
EISSN:
1432-0746
ISSN:
0004-6361


Language:
English
Keywords:
Pubs id:
pubs:8275
UUID:
uuid:80ae8c04-0ebc-42be-9375-49c1e9af8e07
Local pid:
pubs:8275
Source identifiers:
8275
Deposit date:
2012-12-19

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