Physics of Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes

Understand

A new model for coevolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes (SMBH) is presented that is physically based.

• The evolutionary track starts with an event that triggers a significant starburst in the central region of a galaxy.
• In this model, the main SMBH growth takes place in post-starburst phase fueled by recycled gas from inner bulge stars in a self-regulated fashion on a time scale that is substantially longer than 100Myrs and at a diminishing Eddington ratio with time.
• We argue that the SMBH cannot gorge itself during the starburst phase, despite the abundant supply of cold gas, because star formation is a preferred mode of gas consumption in such an environment than accretion to the central SMBH.