UNDERSTANDING BLACK HOLE MASS ASSEMBLY VIA ACCRETION AND MERGERS AT LATE TIMES IN COSMOLOGICAL SIMULATIONS

Journal Article · Sun Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 2015 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/799/2/178· OSTI ID:22364339

Kulier, Andrea; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Lackner, Claire N.; Cen, Renyue ^[1]; Natarajan, Priyamvada ^[2]

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1. Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
2. Department of Astronomy, Yale University, 260 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511 (United States)

Accretion is thought to primarily contribute to the mass accumulation history of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) throughout cosmic time. While this may be true at high redshifts, at lower redshifts and for the most massive black holes (BHs) mergers themselves might add significantly to the mass budget. We explore this in two disparate environments—a massive cluster and a void region. We evolve SMBHs from 4 > z > 0 using merger trees derived from hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of these two regions, scaled to the observed value of the stellar mass fraction to account for overcooling. Mass gains from gas accretion proportional to bulge growth and BH-BH mergers are tracked, as are BHs that remain ''orbiting'' due to insufficient dynamical friction in a merger remnant, as well as those that are ejected due to gravitational recoil. We find that gas accretion remains the dominant source of mass accumulation in almost all SMBHs; mergers contribute 2.5% ± 0.1% for all SMBHs in the cluster and 1.0% ± 0.1% in the void since z = 4. However, mergers are significant for massive SMBHs. The fraction of mass accumulated from mergers for central BHs generally increases for larger values of the host bulge mass: in the void, the fraction is 2% at M {sub *,} {sub bul} = 10{sup 10} M {sub ☉}, increasing to 4% at M {sub *,} {sub bul} ≳ 10{sup 11} M {sub ☉}, and in the cluster it is 4% at M {sub *,} {sub bul} = 10{sup 10} M {sub ☉} and 23% at 10{sup 12} M {sub ☉}. We also find that the total mass in orbiting SMBHs is negligible in the void, but significant in the cluster, in which a potentially detectable 40% of SMBHs and ≈8% of the total SMBH mass (where the total includes central, orbiting, and ejected SMBHs) is found orbiting at z = 0. The existence of orbiting and ejected SMBHs requires modification of the Soltan argument. We estimate this correction to the integrated accreted mass density of SMBHs to be in the range 6%-21%, with a mean value of 11% ± 3%. Quantifying the growth due to mergers at these late times, we calculate the total energy output and strain from gravitational waves emitted by merging SMBHs, and obtain a signal potentially detectable by pulsar timing arrays.

• OSTI ID: 22364339
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 799; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
BLACK HOLES
BUILDUP
CORRECTIONS
DENSITY
GAIN
GALAXY NUCLEI
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
MASS
POTENTIALS
PULSARS
QUASARS
RED SHIFT
STAR ACCRETION
STRAINS