Magnetized Accretion onto and Feedback from Supermassive Black Holes in Elliptical Galaxies

Abstract

We present three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the fueling of supermassive black holes in elliptical galaxies from a turbulent cooling medium on galactic scales, taking M87* as a typical case. We find that the mass accretion rate is increased by a factor of $\sim 10$ compared with analogous hydrodynamic simulations. The scaling of $\dot{M}\sim r^{1/2}$ roughly holds from $\sim 10\mathrm{pc}$ to $\sim 10^{-3}\mathrm{pc}$ ($\sim 10r_{\mathrm{g}}$) with the accretion rate through the event horizon being $\sim 10^{-2}{M}_{\odot }\mathrm{y}{\mathrm{r}}^{-1}$. The accretion flow on scales $\sim 0.03-3\mathrm{kpc}$ takes the form of magnetized filaments. Within $\sim 30\mathrm{pc}$, the cold gas circularizes, forming a highly magnetized ($\beta \sim 10^{-3}$) thick disk supported by a primarily toroidal magnetic field. The cold disk is truncated and transitions to a turbulent hot accretion flow at $\sim 0.3\mathrm{pc}$ ($10^3{r}_{\mathrm{g}}$). There are strong outflows towards the poles driven by the magnetic field. The outflow energy flux increases with smaller accretor size, reaching $\sim 3\times 10^{43}\mathrm{erg}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ for $r_{\mathrm{in}}=8r_{\mathrm{g}}$; this corresponds to a nearly constant energy feedback efficiency of $\eta \sim 0.05-0.1$ independent of accretor size. The feedback energy is enough to balance the total cooling of the M87/Virgo hot halo out to $\sim 50$ kpc. The accreted magnetic flux at small radii is similar to that in magnetically arrested disk models, consistent with the formation of a powerful jet on horizon scales in M87. Our results motivate a subgrid model for accretion in lower-resolution simulations in which the hot gas accretion rate is suppressed relative to the Bondi rate by $\sim (10r_{\mathrm{g}}/r_{\mathrm{B}}{)}^{1/2}$.

23 pages, 14 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ

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• H-AMR FORGE'd in FIRE I: Magnetic state transitions, jet launching and radiative emission in super-Eddington, highly magnetized quasar disks formed from cosmological initial conditions
• Survey of Radiative, Two-Temperature Magnetically Arrested Simulations of the Black Hole M87* I: Turbulent Electron Heating
• Accretion onto supermassive and intermediate mass black holes in cosmological simulations
• The Lense-Thirring effect at work in M87${}^{\ast }$
• Thick Disks, Thin Hopes: Suppressed Capture and Merger Rates in AGN
• A novel sub-grid model for super-Eddington accretion of spinning black holes in galaxy-scale simulations
• Interpreting Swift and NuSTAR Observations of the Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nucleus NGC 4278 with Radiatively Inefficient Accretion Flows and Implications for Neutrino Emission
• Generalized Bondi Accretion Flow with and without Outflow