Feeding compact bulges and supermassive black holes with low angular-momentum cosmic gas at high redshift

Yohan Dubois; Christophe Pichon; Martin Haehnelt; Taysun Kimm; Adrianne Slyz; Julien Devriendt; Dmitry Pogosyan

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21160.x

paper

Feeding compact bulges and supermassive black holes with low angular-momentum cosmic gas at high redshift

arXiv:1112.2479 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21160.x

Abstract

We use cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to show that a significant fraction of the gas in high redshift rare massive halos falls nearly radially to their very centre on extremely short timescales. This process results in the formation of very compact bulges with specific angular momentum a factor 5-30 $s ma l l er t han t h e a v er a g e an g u l a r m o m e n t u m o f t h e ba r y o n s in t h e w h o l e ha l o . S u c h l o w an g u l a r m o m e n t u m or i g ina t es b o t h f r o m se g r e g a t i o nan d e f f ec t i v ec an ce l l a t i o n w h e n t h e g a s f l o w s t o t h ece n t r eo f t h e ha l o a l o n g w e l l d e f in e d co l df i l am e n t a r y s t r e am s . T h ese f i l am e n t s p e n e t r a t e d ee p in s i d e t h e ha l o an d co nn ec tt o t h e b u l g e f r o mm u l t i pl er a p i d l y c han g in g d i r ec t i o n s . S t r u c t u r es f a l l in g ina l o n g t h e f i l am e n t s (s a t e l l i t e g a l a x i es) or f or m e d b y g r a v i t a t i o na l in s t abi l i t i es t r i g g er e d b y t h e in f l o w (s t a r c l u s t er s) f u r t h er r e d u ce t h e an g u l a r m o m e n t u m o f t h e g a s in t h e b u l g e . F ina l l y, t h e f r a c t i o n o f g a sr a d ia l l y f a l l in g t o t h ece n t r e a pp e a r s t o in cr e a se w i t h t h e ma sso f t h e ha l o; w e a r g u e t ha tt hi s i s m os tl ik e l y d u e t o an e nhan ce d c an ce l l a t i o n o f an g u l a r m o m e n t u min r a r er ha l os w hi c ha r e f e d b y m or e i so t r o p i c a l l y d i s t r ib u t e d co l d s t r e am s . S u c hanin cr e a s in g l y e f f i c i e n t f u nn e l l in g o f l o w - an g u l a r m o m e n t u m g a s t o t h ece n t r eo f v er y ma ss i v e ha l os a t hi g h r e d s hi f t ma y a cco u n t f or t h er a p i d p a ce a tw hi c h t h e m os t ma ss i v es u p er ma ss i v e b l a c k h o l es g r o w t or e a c h o b ser v e d ma sses a r o u n d$ 10^9 $M$ _\odot$ at an epoch when the Universe is barely 1 Gyr old.

17 pages, 13 figures, MNRAS accepted

Feeding compact bulges and supermassive black holes with low angular-momentum cosmic gas at high redshift

Abstract

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