Global Preventive Feedback of Powerful Radio Jets on Galaxy Formation

Abstract

Firmly anchored on observational data, giant radio lobes from massive galaxies hosting supermassive black holes can exert a major negative feedback effect, by endowing the intergalactic gas with significant magnetic pressure hence retarding or preventing gas accretion onto less massive halos in the vicinity. Since massive galaxies that are largely responsible for producing the giant radio lobes, this effect is expected to be stronger in more overdense large-scale environments, such as proto-clusters, than in underdense regions, such as voids. We show that by redshift $z=2$ halos with masses up to $(10^{11-12}, 10^{12-13})\msun$ are significantly hindered from accreting gas due to this effect for radio bubble volume filling fraction of $(1.0,0.2)$, respectively. Since the vast majority of the stars in the universe at $z<2-3$ form precisely in those halos, this negative feedback process is likely one major culprit for causing the global downturn in star formation in the universe since. It also provides a natural explanation for the rather sudden flattening of the slope of the galaxy rest-frame UV luminosity function around $z\sim 2$. A cross-correlation between proto-clusters and Faraday rotation measures may test the predicted magnetic field. Inclusion of this external feedback process in the next generation of cosmological simulations may be imperative.

7 pages, published on Aug 19, 2024 in PNAS

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• A large thermal energy reservoir in the nascent intracluster medium at a redshift of 4.3
• Reduced Gas Accretion onto Galaxies due to Effects of External Giant Radio Lobes