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Cosmological Evolution of Supermassive Black Holes: Mass Functions and Spins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2013

Yan-Rong Li ,
Jian-Min Wang  and
Luis C. Ho
Yan-Rong Li
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory for Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics, 19B Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China email: liyanrong@mail.ihep.ac.cn, wangjm@mail.ihep.ac.cn
Jian-Min Wang
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory for Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics, 19B Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China email: liyanrong@mail.ihep.ac.cn, wangjm@mail.ihep.ac.cn
Luis C. Ho
Affiliation:
The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 813 Santa Barbara St., Pasadena, CA 91101, USA email: lho@obs.carnegiescience.edu
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Abstract

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We derive the mass function of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) over the redshift range 0 > z ≲ 2, using the latest deep luminosity and mass functions of field galaxies. Applying this mass function, combined with the bolometric luminosity function of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), into the the continuity equation of SMBH number density, we explicitly obtain the mass-dependent cosmological evolution of the radiative efficiency for accretion. We suggest that the accretion history of SMBHs and their spins evolve in two distinct regimes: an early phase of prolonged accretion, plausibly driven by major mergers, during which the black hole spins up, then switching to a period of random, episodic accretion, governed by minor mergers and internal secular processes, during which the hole spins down. The transition epoch depends on mass, mirroring other evidence for “cosmic downsizing” in the AGN population.

Keywords

Black hole physicsgalaxy: evolutionquasars: general
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 8 , Symposium S290: Feeding Compact Objects: Accretion on All Scales , August 2012 , pp. 259 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2013

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