Coevolution of dark matter halos and black holes

ASTR SOC P 379 (2007) 273-275

Authors:

A Babic, L Miller, W Percival, S Croorn

Abstract:

We investigate a model of the coevolution of black holes and dark matter halos. The evolution of dark matter halos is based on the Press-Schechter theory. Assuming a simple relation between dark matter halos and supermassive black holes enables us to reproduce both the observed evolving hard X-ray luminosity function and the X-ray background.

Observational links between AGN evolution and galaxy growth

ASTR SOC P 379 (2007) 194-201

Abstract:

There is growing interest in the possible link between the growth of supermassive black holes and the effect of feedback from them on galaxy growth. There are three areas of significant uncertainty: (i) the physics of the feedback; (ii) the prevalence and effectiveness of feedback; (iii) the link between the growth of black holes and their hosts. The 2QZ optical QSO survey indicates that luminous QSOs are relatively short-lived, and it has recently been shown that the observed bolometric luminosity density from all AGN and its evolution can be reproduced if black holes grew coevally with their galaxies, implying but not requiring a causal link between galaxy growth and black hole growth. At low redshifts there is some evidence that black hole and galaxy growth are starting to decouple.

The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO Survey: QSO clustering and the L-z degeneracy

ArXiv astro-ph/0612401 (2006)

Authors:

J da Angela, T Shanks, SM Croom, P Weilbacher, RJ Brunner, WJ Couch, L Miller, AD Myers, RC Nichol, KA Pimbblet, R de Propris, GT Richards, NP Ross, DP Schneider, DA Wake

Abstract:

We combine the QSO samples from the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey (2QZ) and the 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO Survey (2SLAQ) in order to investigate the clustering of z~1.4 QSOs and measure the correlation function. The clustering signal in z-space, projected along the sky direction, is similar to that previously obtained from 2QZ alone. By fitting the z-space correlation function and lifting the degeneracy between beta and Omega_m_0 by using linear theory predictions, we obtain beta(z=1.4) = 0.60+-0.12 and Omega_m_0=0.25+-0.08, implying a value for the QSO bias, b(z=1.4)=1.5+-0.2. We further find that QSO clustering does not depend strongly on luminosity at fixed redshift. This result is inconsistent with the expectation of simple `high peaks' biasing models where more luminous, rare QSOs are assumed to inhabit higher mass haloes. The data are more consistent with models which predict that QSOs of different luminosities reside in haloes of similar mass. We find that halo mass does not evolve strongly with redshift nor depend on QSO luminosity. We finally investigate how black hole mass correlates with luminosity and redshift and ascertain the relation between Eddington efficiency and black hole mass. Our results suggest that QSOs of different luminosities may contain black holes of similar mass.

The cosmological history of accretion onto dark halos and supermassive black holes

Astronomy and Astrophysics 459 (2006) 43-54

Authors:

L Miller, Percival, W.J., Croom, S.M., Babic, A.

The evolution of host mass and black hole mass in QSOs from the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey

ArXiv astro-ph/0609270 (2006)

Authors:

S Fine, SM Croom, L Miller, A Babic, D Moore, B Brewer, RG Sharp, BJ Boyle, T Shanks, RJ Smith, PJ Outram, NS Loaring

Abstract:

We investigate the relation between the mass of super-massive black holes (Mbh) in QSOs and the mass of the dark matter halos hosting them (Mdh). We measure the widths of broad emission lines (Mgii lambda 2798, Civ lambda 1549) from QSO composite spectra as a function of redshift. These widths are then used to determine virial black hole mass estimates. We compare our virial black hole mass estimates to dark matter halo masses for QSO hosts derived by Croom et al. (2005) based on measurements of QSO clustering. This enables us to trace the Mbh-Mdh relation over the redshift range z=0.5 to 2.5. We calculate the mean zero-point of the Mbh-Mdh relation to be Mbh=10^(8.4+/-0.2)Msun for an Mdh=10^(12.5)Msun. These data are then compared with several models connecting Mbh and Mdh as well as recent hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy evolution. We note that the flux limited nature of QSO samples can cause a Malmquist-type bias in the measured zero-point of the Mbh-Mdh relation. The magnitude of this bias depends on the scatter in the Mbh-Mdh relation, and we reevaluate the zero-point assuming three published values for this scatter. (abridged)