The Illustris simulation: Supermassive black hole-galaxy connection beyond the bulge

Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil, Marc S. Seigar, Ian B. Hewitt, Patrick Treuthardt, Joel C. Berrier, Lauren E. Koval

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study the spiral arm morphology of a sample of the local spiral galaxies in the Illustris simulation and explore the supermassive black hole-galaxy connection beyond the bulge (e.g. spiral arm pitch angle, total stellar mass, dark matter mass, and total halo mass), finding good agreement with other theoretical studies and observational constraints. It is important to study the properties of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies through both observations and simulations and compare their results in order to understand their physics and formative histories. We find that Illustris prediction for supermassive black hole mass relative to pitch angle is in rather good agreement with observations and that barred and non-barred galaxies follow similar scaling relations. Our work shows that Illustris presents very tight correlations between supermassive black hole mass and large-scale properties of the host galaxy, not only for early-type galaxies but also for low-mass, blue and star-forming galaxies. These tight relations beyond the bulge suggest that halo properties determine those of a disc galaxy and its supermassive black hole.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2594-2606
Number of pages13
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume474
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Cosmology: theory
  • Galaxies: spiral
  • Galaxy: formation
  • Methods: numerical

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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