AGN and Star Formation at Cosmic Noon: Comparison of Data to Theoretical Models

Abstract

In theoretical models of galaxy evolution, AGN and star formation (SF) activity are closely linked and AGN feedback is routinely invoked to regulate galaxy growth. In order to constrain such models, we compare the hydrodynamical simulations IllustrisTNG and SIMBA, and the semi-analytical model SAG to the empirical results on AGN and SF at cosmic noon ($0.75<z<2.25$) reported in Florez et al. (2020). The empirical results are based on a large mass-complete sample drawn from 93,307 galaxies with and without high X-ray luminosity AGN ($L_X\gtrsim 10^{44}$ erg s${}^{-1}$), selected from a 11.8 deg${}^2$ area ($\sim 0.18$ Gpc${}^3$ comoving volume at $z=0.75-2.25$). The main results of our comparisons are: (i) SAG and IllustrisTNG both qualitatively reproduce the empirical result that galaxies with high X-ray luminosity AGN have higher mean SFR, at a given stellar mass, than galaxies without such AGN. SAG, however, strongly over-produces the number density of high X-ray luminosity AGN by a factor of 10 to 100, while IllustrisTNG shows a lack of high X-ray luminosity AGN at high stellar mass ($M\ast >10^{11}{M}_{\odot }$) at $z\sim 2$. (ii) In SIMBA, the mean SFR of galaxies with high X-ray luminosity AGN is lower than the SFR of galaxies without such AGN. Contrary to the data, many high X-ray luminosity AGN in SIMBA have quenched SF, suggesting that AGN feedback, or other feedback modes in galaxies with such AGN, might be too efficient in SIMBA.

20 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (35)

• Cosmic Star Formation History
• Introducing the Illustris Project: Simulating the coevolution of dark and visible matter in the Universe
• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) -- Overview
• EAZY: A Fast, Public Photometric Redshift Code
• UV Star Formation Rates in the Local Universe
• A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies: I. Galaxy Mergers & Quasar Activity
• Properties of galaxies reproduced by a hydrodynamic simulation
• Simulating galaxy formation with black hole driven thermal and kinetic feedback
• The Co-Evolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe
• Simba: Cosmological Simulations with Black Hole Growth and Feedback
• An Observational Determination of the Bolometric Quasar Luminosity Function
• Introducing the Illustris Project: the evolution of galaxy populations across cosmic time
• Detection of quiescent galaxies in a bicolor sequence from z=0-2
• Constraining the Low-Mass Slope of the Star Formation Sequence at 0.5<z<2.5
• Cosmological Simulations of Intergalactic Medium Enrichment from Galactic Outflows
• The All-wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey (AEGIS) Data Sets
• Massive molecular outflows and negative feedback in ULIRGs observed by Herschel-PACS
• X-ray spectral properties of AGN in the Chandra Deep Field South
• Obscuration-dependent evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Evolution of Stellar Mass and the Implied Star Formation History
• The XMM-Newton wide-field survey in the COSMOS field II: X-ray data and the logN-logS
• The impact of mechanical AGN feedback on the formation of massive early-type galaxies
• Detailed Shape and Evolutionary Behavior of the X-ray Luminosity Function of Active Galactic Nuclei
• The XMM-Newton wide-field survey in the COSMOS field. IV: X-ray spectral properties of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Black-Hole Growth is Mainly Linked to Host-Galaxy Stellar Mass rather than Star Formation Rate
• AGN Populations in Large Volume X-ray Surveys: Photometric Redshifts and Population Types found in the Stripe 82X Survey
• Evident black hole-bulge coevolution in the distant universe
• Low accretion rates at the AGN cosmic downsizing epoch
• Preventing Star Formation in Early-Type Galaxies with Late-Time Stellar Heating
• Thermal and radiative AGN feedback have a limited impact on star formation in high-redshift galaxies
• Star formation of far-IR AGN and non-AGN galaxies in the green valley: possible implication of AGN positive feedback
• Exploring AGN and Star Formation Activity of Massive Galaxies at Cosmic Noon
• SDSS-IV eBOSS Spectroscopy of X-ray and WISE AGN in Stripe 82X: Overview of the Demographics of X-ray and Mid-Infrared Selected Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Spitzer-HETDEX Exploratory Large Area Survey II: Dark Energy Camera and Spitzer/IRAC Multiwavelength Catalog
• Exploring the High-Mass End of the Stellar Mass Function of Star Forming Galaxies at Cosmic Noon