2012/10/31 by Qirong Zhu, Zhu, Qirong, Yuexing Li +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1211.0013
12 pages, 7 figures, in emulateapj style, submitted to ApJ
arxiv created 2012/10/31 · openalex publication_date 2012/10/31 · arxiv updated 2012/11/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
It is well established that supermassive black holes in nearby elliptical galaxies correlate tightly with the kinematic property (\mbhsigma correlation) and stellar mass (\mbhhost correlation) of their host spheroids. However, it is not clear what the relations would be at the low-mass end, and how they evolve. Here, we investigate these relations in low-mass systems (\MBH ∼ \rm106- 108 \Msun) using the Aquila Simulation, a high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamic simulation which follows the formation and evolution of stars and black holes in a Milky Way-size galaxy and its substructures. We find a number of interesting results on the origin and evolution of the scaling relations in these systems: (1) there is a strong redshift evolution in the \mbhsigma relation, but a much weaker one in the \mbhhost relation; (2) there is a close link between the \mbhsigma relation and the dynamical state of the system -- the galaxies that fall on the observed correlation appear to have reached virial equilibrium. (3) the star formation and black hole growth are self-regulated in galaxies -- the ratio between black hole accretion rate and star formation rate remains nearly constant in a wide redshift span z = 0-6. These findings suggest that the observed correlations have different origins: the \mbhsigma relation may be the result of virial equilibrium, while the \mbhhost relation may the result of self-regulated star formation and black hole growth in galaxies.