2019/01/14 by Johannes Buchner, Ezequiel Treister, Franz E. Bauer +2 · 20 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Binary black hole #Black hole (networking) #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy formation and evolution #Gravitational wave #Halo #Quasar #Supermassive black hole #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aafd32
published in The Astrophysical Journal 874(2), 117 (IOP Publishing) · Accepted in ApJ
arxiv created 2019/01/14 · openalex created_date 2019/01/25 · openalex publication_date 2019/03/28 · arxiv updated 2019/04/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract We investigate the abundance of supermassive black hole (SMBH) seeds in primordial galaxy halos. We explore the assumption that dark matter halos outgrowing a critical halo mass M c have some probability p of having spawned an SMBH seed. Current observations of local, intermediate-mass galaxies constrain these parameters: for M c = 10 11 M ⊙ , all halos must be seeded, but when adopting smaller M c masses the seeding can be much less efficient. The constraints simultaneously put lower limits on the number density of black holes in the local and high-redshift universe. Reproducing z ∼ 6 quasar space densities depends on their typical halo mass, which can be constrained by counting nearby Lyman Break Galaxies and Lyman-alpha emitters. For both observables, our simulations demonstrate that single-field predictions are too diverse to make definitive statements, in agreement with mixed claims in the literature. If quasars are not limited to the most massive host halos, they may represent a tiny fraction (≈10 −5 ) of the SMBH population. Finally, we produce a wide range of predictions for gravitational events from SMBH mergers. We define a new diagnostic diagram for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna to measure both SMBH space density and the typical delay between halo merger and black hole merger. While previous works have explored specific scenarios, our results hold independent of the seed mechanism, seed mass, obscuration, fueling methods and duty cycle.