TY - JOUR
T1 - Stellar and quasar feedback in concert
T2 - Effects on AGN accretion, obscuration, and outflows
AU - Hopkins, Philip F.
AU - Torrey, Paul
AU - Faucher-Giguère, Claude André
AU - Quataert, Eliot
AU - Murray, Norman
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Todd Thompson for helpful discussions, and the anonymous referee for helpful suggestions. Support for PFH was provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant #776 to the Caltech Moore Center for Theoretical Cosmology and Physics, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, NASA ATP Grant NNX14AH35G, and NSF Collaborative Research Grant #1411920. Numerical calculations were run on the Caltech compute cluster ‘Zwicky’ (NSF MRI award #PHY-0960291) and allocation TGAST130039 granted by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) supported by the NSF. EQ is supported in part by NASA ATP Grant 12-ATP12-0183, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and a Simons Investigator Award from the Simons Foundation. CAFG was supported by a fellowship from the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, by NASA through Einstein Postdoctoral Fellowship Award PF3-140106 and grant 10-ATP10-0187, by NSF through grant AST-1412836, and by Northwestern University funds.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 The Authors.
PY - 2016/2/22
Y1 - 2016/2/22
N2 - We study the interaction of feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) and a multiphase interstellar medium (ISM), in simulations including explicit stellar feedback, multiphase cooling, accretion-disc winds, and Compton heating. We examine radii ~0.1-100 pc around a black hole (BH), where the accretion rate on to the BH is determined and where AGN-powered winds and radiation couple to the ISM. We conclude: (1) the BH accretion rate is determined by exchange of angular momentum between gas and stars in gravitational instabilities. This produces accretion rates ~0.03-1M⊙ yr-1, sufficient to power luminous AGN. (2) The gas disc in the galactic nucleus undergoes an initial burst of star formation followed by several million years where stellar feedback suppresses the star formation rate (SFR). (3) AGN winds injected at small radii with momentum fluxes ~LAGN/c couple efficiently to the ISM and have dramatic effects on ISM properties within ~100 pc. AGN winds suppress the nuclear SFR by factors ~10-30 and BH accretion rate by factors ~3-30. They increase the outflow rate from the nucleus by factors ~10, consistent with observational evidence for galaxy-scale AGNdriven outflows. (4) With AGN feedback, the predicted column density distribution to the BH is consistent with observations. Absent AGN feedback, the BH is isotropically obscured and there are not enough optically thin sightlines to explain type-I AGN. A 'torus-like' geometry arises self-consistently as AGN feedback evacuates gas in polar regions.
AB - We study the interaction of feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) and a multiphase interstellar medium (ISM), in simulations including explicit stellar feedback, multiphase cooling, accretion-disc winds, and Compton heating. We examine radii ~0.1-100 pc around a black hole (BH), where the accretion rate on to the BH is determined and where AGN-powered winds and radiation couple to the ISM. We conclude: (1) the BH accretion rate is determined by exchange of angular momentum between gas and stars in gravitational instabilities. This produces accretion rates ~0.03-1M⊙ yr-1, sufficient to power luminous AGN. (2) The gas disc in the galactic nucleus undergoes an initial burst of star formation followed by several million years where stellar feedback suppresses the star formation rate (SFR). (3) AGN winds injected at small radii with momentum fluxes ~LAGN/c couple efficiently to the ISM and have dramatic effects on ISM properties within ~100 pc. AGN winds suppress the nuclear SFR by factors ~10-30 and BH accretion rate by factors ~3-30. They increase the outflow rate from the nucleus by factors ~10, consistent with observational evidence for galaxy-scale AGNdriven outflows. (4) With AGN feedback, the predicted column density distribution to the BH is consistent with observations. Absent AGN feedback, the BH is isotropically obscured and there are not enough optically thin sightlines to explain type-I AGN. A 'torus-like' geometry arises self-consistently as AGN feedback evacuates gas in polar regions.
KW - Cosmology: theory
KW - Galaxies: active
KW - Galaxies: evolution
KW - Galaxies: formation
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U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stw289
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stw289
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84963719601
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 458
SP - 816
EP - 831
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
IS - 1
ER -