Sustained super-Eddington accretion in high-redshift quasars

Abstract

Observations of $z\gtrsim 6$ quasars provide information on the early evolution of the most massive black holes (MBHs) and galaxies. Current observations, able to trace both gas and stellar properties, reveal a population of MBHs that is significantly more massive than expected from the local MBH-stellar mass relation. The population lies on, but mostly above, the relation observed in the nearby Universe. This suggests that these objects grew very rapidly. To explain their presence when the Universe was less than 1~Gyr old and to assess the physical conditions for their rapid growth, we explored whether episodes of accretion above the Eddington limit can occur across cosmic epochs. By employing state-of-the-art high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations of a $z\sim 7$ quasar, where different accretion regimes are included consistently, together with their associated radiative and kinetic feedback, we show that super-Eddington phases can be sustained for relatively long timescales (tens of millions of years). This allows the MBH to rapidly grow by up to three orders of magnitude, depending on the strength of the kinetic feedback. We also show by means of a semianalytic calculation that the MBH spin remains moderate and does not take on extremely high values during the super-Eddington phases. This results in a lower feedback efficiency, which may allow the rapid growth required to explain over-massive high-redshift MBHs.

8 pages, 5 figures, matches the published version

References in corpus (68)

• Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters
• The cosmological simulation code GADGET-2
• Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments
• Energy input from quasars regulates the growth and activity of black holes and their host galaxies
• Modeling feedback from stars and black holes in galaxy mergers
• The Aquarius Project: the subhalos of galactic halos
• Local Supermassive Black Holes, Relics of Active Galactic Nuclei and the X-ray Background
• Hot Accretion Flows Around Black Holes
• A luminous quasar at a redshift of z = 7.085
• GIZMO: A New Class of Accurate, Mesh-Free Hydrodynamic Simulation Methods
• An 800-million-solar-mass black hole in a significantly neutral Universe at redshift 7.5
• Dancing in the dark: galactic properties trace spin swings along the cosmic web
• Relations Between Central Black Hole Mass and Total Galaxy Stellar Mass in the Local Universe
• An Ultraluminous X-ray Source Powered by An Accreting Neutron Star
• Magnetically Arrested Disk: An Energetically Efficient Accretion Flow
• The Assembly of the First Massive Black Holes
• A Survey of z>5.7 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Discovery of Seven Additional Quasars
• Nuclear Star Clusters
• Universal bolometric corrections for AGN over 7 luminosity decades
• The Romulus Cosmological Simulations: A Physical Approach to the Formation, Dynamics and Accretion Models of SMBHs
• Star Formation in Galaxy Mergers with Realistic Models of Stellar Feedback & the Interstellar Medium
• Supernova Feedback in an Inhomogeneous Interstellar Medium
• AGN-driven quenching of star formation: morphological and dynamical implications for early-type galaxies
• The Assembly of Supermassive Black Holes at High Redshifts
• The origins of massive black holes
• Black Holes on FIRE: Stellar Feedback Limits Early Feeding of Galactic Nuclei
• Super-Critical Growth of Massive Black Holes from Stellar-Mass Seeds
• The Role of Gas in the Merging of Massive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei. I. Black Hole Merging in a Spherical Gas Cloud
• Three-dimensional simulations of super-critical black hole accretion disks --- luminosities, photon trapping and variability
• Radiative and Momentum Based Mechanical AGN Feedback in a 3-Dimensional Galaxy Evolution Code
• The case for super-critical accretion onto massive black holes at high redshift
• The Radiative Efficiency of Hot Accretion Flows
• Off the Beaten Path: A New Approach to Realistically Model The Orbital Decay of Supermassive Black Holes in Galaxy Formation Simulations
• A Simple Law of Star Formation
• Global Radiation Magneto-hydrodynamic Simulations of Sub-Eddington Accretion Disks around Supermassive Black Holes
• The erratic dynamical life of black hole seeds in high-redshift galaxies
• Super-Eddington growth of the first black holes
• Growing massive black holes through super-critical accretion of stellar-mass seeds
• The Kinematics of z ~ 6 Quasar Host Galaxies
• Super-Eddington Accretion and Feedback from the First Massive Seed Black Holes
• EIGER V. Characterizing the Host Galaxies of Luminous Quasars at $z\gtrsim 6$
• Accretion onto black holes formed by direct collapse
• How realistic UV spectra and X-rays suppress the abundance of direct collapse black holes
• The origin of most massive black holes at high-z: BLUETIDES and the next quasar frontier
• A likely decade-long sustained tidal disruption event
• The formation of direct collapse black holes under the influence of streaming velocities
• Turbulent Cold Flows Gave Birth to the First Quasars
• Evidence for Low Radiative Efficiency or Highly Obscured Growth of $z>7$ Quasars
• Energy flows in thick accretion disks and their consequences for black hole feedback
• A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): A First Look at the Rest-frame Optical Spectra of $z>6.5$ Quasars Using JWST
• High-redshift quasars and their host galaxies I: kinematical and dynamical properties and their tracers
• Seeds Don't Sink: Even Massive Black Hole "Seeds" Cannot Migrate to Galaxy Centers Efficiently
• Magnetic Flux of Progenitor Stars Sets Gamma-ray Burst Luminosity and Variability
• Luminous Quasars Do Not Live in the Most Overdense Regions of Galaxies at z~4
• Quasar outflows at $z\ge 6$: the impact on the host galaxies
• How the super-Eddington regime regulates black hole growth in high-redshift galaxies
• Forming massive seed black holes in high-redshift quasar host progenitors
• Predicting FIR lines from simulated galaxies
• The web of the Giant: spectroscopic confirmation of a Large Scale Structure around the z=6.31 quasar SDSS J1030+0524
• Young and turbulent: the early life of massive galaxy progenitors
• The [CII]--SFR correlation in dwarf galaxies across cosmic time
• The descendants of the first quasars in the BlueTides simulation
• Probing the $z\gtrsim 6$ quasars in a universe with IllustrisTNG physics: Impact of gas-based black hole seeding models
• Super-critical accretion of medium-weight seed black holes in gaseous proto-galactic nuclei
• High-redshift quasars and their host galaxies II: multiphase gas and stellar kinematics
• Non-isotropic feedback from accreting spinning black holes
• How the super-Eddington regime affects black hole spin evolution in high-redshift galaxies

Cited by in corpus (21)

• The Science of the Einstein Telescope
• A dormant, overmassive black hole in the early Universe
• Size matters: are we witnessing super-Eddington accretion in high-redshift black holes from JWST?
• The radio properties of the JWST-discovered AGN
• Little Red Dots as Direct-collapse Black Hole Nurseries
• Accretion onto supermassive and intermediate mass black holes in cosmological simulations
• Is GN-z11 powered by a super-Eddington massive black hole?
• Prospects for Observing High-redshift Radio-loud Quasars in the SKA Era: Paving the Way for 21-cm Forest Observations
• Multi-wavelength properties of three new radio-powerful $z\sim 5.6$ quasi-stellar objects discovered from RACS
• Feedback-regulated Seed Black Hole Growth in Star-Forming Molecular Clouds and Galactic Nuclei
• The Noctua Suite of Simulations -- The Difficulty of Growing Massive Black Holes in Low-Mass Dwarf Galaxies
• Shedding the envelope: JWST reveals a kiloparsec-scale [OIII]-weak Balmer shell around a z=7.64 quasar
• Super-Eddington Growth Ceiling: Analytic Constraints on the Rapid Growth of Light-Seed Black Holes in Massive Clumps
• Super-Eddington accretion in high-redshift quasar hosts: Black-hole driven outflows, galaxy quenching, and the nature of little red dots
• Overmassive and Undermassive Massive Black Holes: The Role of Environment and Gravitational-Wave Recoils
• Signatures of Exploding Supermassive PopIII Stars at High Redshift in JWST, EUCLID and Roman Space Telescope
• Massive black holes and their galaxies
• Rapid sinking and efficient mergers of supermassive black holes in compact high-redshift galaxies
• Off-center black hole seed formation? Implications for high and low redshift massive black holes
• Identification of Candidate Halos Hosting Massive Black Hole Seeds in the $\text{Renaissance}$ Simulations with Support Vector Machines
• A novel sub-grid model for super-Eddington accretion of spinning black holes in galaxy-scale simulations