Observability of Low-Luminosity AGN in the Early Universe with JWST

Abstract

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the early Universe are thought to be prominent sources of energy and ionizing photons that affected the growth of their host galaxy and their environment. However, it is still unclear how the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that fuel these AGN grew to the observed high masses already at high redshifts. Observations of high-redshift SMBH progenitors or lower-luminosity AGN will thus help characterize the evolution of SMBHs and their impact on the surroundings. With the launch of the JWST, fainter objects at high redshifts can now be detected, including lower-luminosity AGN. We assess the observability of such low luminosity AGN, using the cosmological simulation code GIZMO to provide a realistic environment for black hole growth in the early Universe. Soon after the first stars are born in the simulation run, we insert stellar-remnant black hole seeds of various initial masses, between $300$ and $10^4{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$, at the center of a dark matter halo and follow their growth until $z\sim 6$. Such stellar black hole seeds placed in a typical high-$z$ environment do not significantly accrete and grow to reach masses that can be observed with the JWST under conditions of standard Bondi-Hoyle accretion, as energy input from stellar feedback and chaotic dynamics prevent efficient gas accretion onto the black holes. To be observed with the JWST, rarer but still physically feasible growth regimes, involving Eddington or super-Eddington accretion, would be required. Alternatively, AGN observability may be boosted under even rarer conditions of extreme gravitational lensing.

12 pages, 10 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (51)

• The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments
• Cosmic Reionization and Early Star-Forming Galaxies: A Joint Analysis of New Constraints from Planck and Hubble Space Telescope
• An ultra-luminous quasar with a twelve-billion-solar-mass black hole at redshift 6.30
• A New Calculation of the Ionizing Background Spectrum and the Effects of HeII Reionization
• Direct cosmological simulations of the growth of black holes and galaxies
• A Comprehensive Study on Galaxies at z~9-16 Found in the Early JWST Data: UV Luminosity Functions and Cosmic Star-Formation History at the Pre-Reionization Epoch
• CEERS Key Paper I: An Early Look into the First 500 Myr of Galaxy Formation with JWST
• A Global Three Dimensional Radiation Magneto-hydrodynamic Simulation of Super-Eddington Accretion Disks
• Virial Scaling of Massive Dark Matter Halos: Why Clusters Prefer a High Normalization Cosmology
• Conditions for Reionizing the Universe with A Low Galaxy Ionizing Photon Escape Fraction
• Hydrogen reionisation ends by $z=5.3$: Lyman-$\alpha$ optical depth measured by the XQR-30 sample
• The origins of massive black holes
• CEERS Epoch 1 NIRCam Imaging: Reduction Methods and Simulations Enabling Early JWST Science Results
• Formation of massive black holes in rapidly growing pre-galactic gas clouds
• The mass relations between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies at 1<z<2 with HST-WFC3
• The aftermath of the first stars: massive black holes
• JWST's PEARLS: Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science: Project Overview and First Results
• Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Active Galactic Nucleus Disks and Jets
• Accretion onto Intermediate-Mass Black Holes in Dense Protogalactic Clouds
• The erratic dynamical life of black hole seeds in high-redshift galaxies
• Diagnostics for PopIII galaxies and Direct Collapse Black Holes in the early universe
• A Candidate of a Least-Massive Black Hole at the First 1.1 Billion Years of the Universe
• Hidden AGN in dwarf galaxies revealed by MaNGA: light echoes, off-nuclear wanderers, and a new broad-line AGN
• Supermassive Black Holes at High Redshift are Expected to be Obscured by their Massive Host Galaxies' Inter Stellar Medium
• The low-end of the black hole mass function at cosmic dawn
• The influence of streaming velocities and Lyman-Werner radiation on the formation of the first stars
• The Birth Mass Function of Pop III Stars
• AGN Selection and Demographics in GOODS-S/HUDF from X-ray to Radio
• Conditions for Optimal Growth of Black Hole Seeds
• The abundance of $z\gtrsim 10$ galaxy candidates in the HUDF using deep JWST NIRCam medium-band imaging
• Formation of the first stars and black holes
• GOALS-JWST: Tracing AGN Feedback on the Star-Forming ISM in NGC 7469
• Gravitational waves from Population III binary black holes formed by dynamical capture
• JWST Imaging of Earendel, the Extremely Magnified Star at Redshift $z=6.2$
• Seeds Don't Sink: Even Massive Black Hole "Seeds" Cannot Migrate to Galaxy Centers Efficiently
• Black hole feeding and feedback: the physics inside the "subgrid"
• Light, medium-weight or heavy? The nature of the first supermassive black hole seeds
• CEERS Key Paper III: The Resolved Host Properties of AGN at 3 < z < 5 with JWST
• Host galaxies of high-redshift quasars: supermassive black hole growth and feedback
• EIGER III. JWST/NIRCam observations of the ultra-luminous high-redshift quasar J0100+2802
• Opening the era of quasar host studies at high redshift with JWST
• Formation of supermassive stars in the first star clusters
• Primordial star clusters at extreme magnification
• Radiative effects during the assembly of direct collapse black holes
• Nuclear high-ionisation outflow in the Compton-thick AGN NGC6552 as seen by the JWST mid-infrared instrument
• On the probability of the extremely lensed $z$=6.2 Earendel source being a Population~III star
• High-redshift SMBHs can grow from stellar-mass seeds via chaotic accretion
• Global radiation signature from early structure formation
• Subhalo sinking and off-center massive black holes in dwarf galaxies
• An empirical approach to selecting the first growing black hole seeds with JWST/NIRCam
• Maximal X-ray feedback in the pre-reionization universe

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The formation of supermassive black holes from Population III.1 seeds. II. Evolution to the local universe
• How do Primordial Black Holes change the Halo Mass Function and Structure?
• Identification of Intermediate-mass Black Hole Candidates Among a Sample of Sd Galaxies
• The implications of overmassive black holes at $z>5$ for quasar and black hole growth
• An Estimate of the Impact of Reionization on Supermassive Black Hole Growth
• Probing extreme black-hole outflows on short timescales via high spectral-resolution X-ray imagers
• Exploring the halo occupation distribution for moderate X-ray luminosity active galactic nuclei in the EAGLE cosmological simulation