An Estimate of the Impact of Reionization on Supermassive Black Hole Growth

Abstract

The supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that power active galactic nuclei found at $z>6$ were formed during the epoch of reionization. Because reionization is an inhomogeneous process, the physical properties of SMBH host galaxy environments will vary spatially during reionization. We construct a semi-analytic model to estimate the impact of reionization on SMBH growth. Using a series of merger trees, reionization models, and black hole growth models, we find that early reionization can reduce an SMBH's mass by up to [50, 70, 90] % within dark matter halos of mass [$10^{12}$, $10^{11}$, $10^{10}$] M${}_{\odot }$ by $z$ = 6. Our findings also suggest that the redshift range in which black hole growth is impacted by reionization strongly depends on whether the Eddington accretion rate can be exceeded. If so, we find that black hole masses are significantly suppressed principally during the early phases of reionization ($z$ > 10), while they are more readily suppressed across the full redshift range if super-Eddington growth is not allowed. We find that the global average impact of reionization may be to reduce the masses of black holes residing in < 10${}^{11}$ M${}_{\odot }$ halos by a factor of > 2. The census of supermassive black holes being uncovered by the James Webb Space Telescope may offer a means to test the basic prediction that more massive black holes reside in cosmological volumes that are reionized at later times.

12 pages, 8 figures. Accepted to ApJ

References in corpus (34)

• A luminous quasar at a redshift of z = 7.085
• An ultra-luminous quasar with a twelve-billion-solar-mass black hole at redshift 6.30
• The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on the James Webb Space Telescope I. Overview of the instrument and its capabilities
• The Assembly of the First Massive Black Holes
• Massloss of galaxies due to a UV-background
• A Luminous Quasar at Redshift 7.642
• The bulk of the black hole growth since z~1 occurs in a secular universe: No major merger-AGN connection
• A CEERS Discovery of an Accreting Supermassive Black Hole 570 Myr after the Big Bang: Identifying a Progenitor of Massive z > 6 Quasars
• GA-NIFS: A massive black hole in a low-metallicity AGN at $z\sim 5.55$ revealed by JWST/NIRSpec IFS
• Accretion onto the First Stellar Mass Black Holes
• Four quasars above redshift 6 discovered by the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey
• JWST CEERS & JADES Active Galaxies at z = 4-7 Violate the Local $M_{\bullet }-M_{\star }$ Relation at $>3\sigma$: Implications for Low-Mass Black Holes and Seeding Models
• Quasars at z=6: the survival of the fittest
• A Significantly Neutral Intergalactic Medium Around the Luminous z=7 Quasar J0252-0503
• 21cmFAST v3: A Python-integrated C code forgenerating 3D realizations of the cosmic 21cm signal
• ALMA Observations Show Major Mergers Among the Host Galaxies of Fast-growing, High-redshift Supermassive Black Holes
• 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
• Conditions for Optimal Growth of Black Hole Seeds
• No overdensity of Lyman Alpha Emitting Galaxies around a quasar at z~5.7
• GA-NIFS: Black hole and host galaxy properties of two z$\simeq$6.8 quasars from the NIRSpec IFU
• On the Accretion Rates and Radiative Efficiencies of the Highest Redshift Quasars
• The Redshift Evolution of the $M_{\bullet }-M_{\star }$ Relation for JWST's Supermassive Black Holes at $z>4$
• EPOCHS VII: Discovery of high redshift ($6.5<z<12$) AGN candidates in JWST ERO and PEARLS data
• EIGER III. JWST/NIRCam observations of the ultra-luminous high-redshift quasar J0100+2802
• Interacting galaxies in the IllustrisTNG simulations -- IV: Enhanced Supermassive Black Hole Accretion Rates in Post-Merger Galaxies
• How AGN and SNe feedback affect mass transport and black hole growth in high redshift galaxies
• Observability of Low-Luminosity AGN in the Early Universe with JWST
• Driving the Growth of the Earliest Supermassive Black Holes with Major Mergers of Host Galaxies
• New quasar proximity zone size measurements at $z\sim 6$ using the enlarged XQR-30 sample
• Nuclear activity in $z<0.3$ QSO 2's mainly triggered by galaxy mergers
• Sustained super-Eddington accretion around neutron stars & black holes
• Revisiting Soltan's argument based on a semi-analytical model for galaxy and black hole evolution
• Origin of supermassive black holes: predictions for the black hole population
• Devouring The Centaurus A Satellites: Modeling Dwarf Galaxies with Galacticus