Origin of the Golden Mass of Galaxies and Black Holes

Abstract

We address the origin of the golden mass and time for galaxy formation and the onset of rapid black-hole growth. The preferred dark-halo mass of ~$10^{12}{M}_{\odot }$ is translated to a characteristic epoch, z~2, at which the typical forming halos have a comparable mass. We put together a coherent picture based on existing and new simple analytic modeling and cosmological simulations. We describe how the golden mass arises from two physical mechanisms that suppress gas supply and star formation below and above the golden mass, supernova feedback and virial shock heating of the circum-galactic medium (CGM), respectively. Cosmological simulations reveal that these mechanisms are responsible for a similar favored mass for the dramatic events of gaseous compaction into compact star-forming "blue nuggets", caused by mergers, counter-rotating streams or other mechanisms. This triggers inside-out quenching of star formation, to be maintained by the hot CGM, leading to today's passive early-type galaxies. The blue-nugget phase is responsible for transitions in the galaxy structural, kinematic and compositional properties, e.g., from dark-matter to baryon central dominance and from prolate to oblate shape. The growth of the central black hole is suppressed by supernova feedback below the critical mass, and is free to grow once the halo is massive enough to lock the supernova ejecta by its deep potential well and the hot CGM. A compaction near the golden mass makes the black hole sink to the galactic center and triggers a rapid black-hole growth. This ignites feedback by the Active Galactic Nucleus that helps keeping the CGM hot and maintaining long-term quenching.

9 pages, 12 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Keck-I MOSFIRE spectroscopy of compact star-forming galaxies at z$\gtrsim$2: High velocity dispersions in progenitors of compact quiescent galaxies

Cited by in corpus (18)

• How do central and satellite galaxies quench? -- Insights from spatially resolved spectroscopy in the MaNGA survey
• Black hole mergers from dwarf to massive galaxies with the NewHorizon and Horizon-AGN simulations
• Hot-mode accretion and the physics of thin-disk galaxy formation
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: The kinematic-morphology of galaxies on the mass vs star-formation relation in different environments
• LOFAR Observations of X-ray Cavity Systems
• Beyond halo mass: quenching galaxy mass assembly at the edge of filaments
• Revealing the relation between black-hole growth and host-galaxy compactness among star-forming galaxies
• Compaction-Driven Black Hole Growth
• Impact of AGN feedback on galaxies and their multiphase ISM across cosmic time
• Evaluating Galaxy Dynamical Masses From Kinematics and Jeans Equilibrium in Simulations
• High-redshift Galaxy Formation with Self-consistently Modeled Stars and Massive Black Holes: Stellar Feedback and Quasar Growth
• The nature of giant clumps in high-z discs: a deep-learning comparison of simulations and observations
• The (Black Hole Mass)-(Spheroid Stellar Density) Relations: $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--$\mu$ (and $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--$\Sigma$) and $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--$\rho$
• MusE GAs FLOw and Wind (MEGAFLOW) VII. A NOEMA pilot program to probe molecular gas in galaxies with measured circumgalactic gas flows
• Probing the link between quenching and morphological evolution
• The central dark matter fraction of massive early-type galaxies
• The origin of star-forming rings in S0 galaxies
• A search for H${}_2$O masers in 100 active dwarf galaxies