2010/06/01 by Barry McKernan, Ari Maller, Ariyeh Maller +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Active galactic nucleus #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black hole (networking) #Galactic halo #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Halo #Luminosity #Metallicity #Stars #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/2041-8205/718/2/l83
5 pages, 1 figure ApJL (accepted), uses emulateapj
arxiv created 2010/06/01 · openalex publication_date 2010/07/08 · arxiv updated 2015/05/19 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We propose a new mechanism for the delivery of gas to the heart of galactic nuclei. We show that warm halo clouds (WHCs) must periodically impact galactic centers and potentially deliver a large (∼10 4 –10 6 M ☉ ) mass of gas to the galactic nucleus in a singular event. The impact of an accreting WHC originating far in the galactic halo can, depending on mixing, produce a nuclear starburst of low-metallicity stars as well as low-luminosity accretion onto the central black hole. Based on multiphase cooling around a ΛCDM distribution of halos, we calculate the nuclear impact rate, the mass captured by the central black hole, and the fraction of active nuclei for impacting cloud masses in the range 10 4 –10 6 M ☉ . If there is moderate braking during cloud infall, our model predicts an average fraction of low-luminosity active nuclei consistent with observations.