Adding a Suite of Chemical Abundances to the MACER Code for the Evolution of Massive Elliptical Galaxies

Abstract

We add a suite of chemical abundances to the MACER (Massive AGN Controlled Ellipticals Resolved) 2D code, by solving 12 additional continuity equations for H, He, C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ca, Fe and Ni respectively with sources from AGB stars and supernovae of type Ia and II with metal yields based on standard stellar physics. New stars, formed in Toomre unstable circumnuclear disks (of a size $\lesssim 150$ parsec), are assumed to have a top-heavy initial mass function with a power index of 1.65. The metal dilution effects due to cosmic accretion are also included. With the high resolution of few parsecs in central regions, resolved black hole accretion and AGN feedback, we can track the metal enrichment, transportation and dilution throughout the modeled massive elliptical galaxy of velocity dispersion $\sim 280$ km/s. We retrieve the chemical composition of the BAL winds launched by the central AGN, synthesize the X-ray features of the hot ISM, and find that (1) the simulated metallicity in the BAL winds could be up to $\sim 8Z_{\odot }$, while that of the hot ISM in the host galaxy is $\sim 2.3Z_{\odot }$, matching well with SDSS observations of BLR gas; (2) the X-ray emitting hot gas is metal enriched with a typical value $\sim 2.5Z_{\odot }$; (3) the circumunuclear cold gas disk, where the metals are condensed, further enriched and recycled, plays a critical role in the metal enrichment; (4) the black hole accretion rate ${\dot{M}}_{\mathrm{BH}}$ linearly correlates with the star formation rate ${\dot{M}}_{\star }^{+}$ in the circumnuclear disk, i.e, ${\dot{M}}_{\star }^{+}\sim 7.7{\dot{M}}_{\mathrm{BH}}$, but lagged in time by roughly $10^6$ years.

10 pages, 10 figures; accepted by ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• The Impact of Outflows driven by Active Galactic Nuclei on Metals in and around Galaxies
• The Connection between Mergers and AGN Activity in Simulated and Observed Massive Galaxies
• Metal abundances in the MACER simulations of the hot interstellar medium
• Jeans modeling of axisymmetric galaxies with multiple stellar populations
• A Parameter Space Exploration of High Resolution Numerically Evolved Early Type Galaxies Including AGN Feedback and Accurate Dynamical Treatment of Stellar Orbits