Semi-analytic modelling of AGNs: auto-correlation function and halo occupation

Understand

The spatial clustering of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is considered to be one of the important diagnostics for the understanding of the underlying processes behind their activities complementary to measurements of the luminosity function (LF).

• We analyse the AGN clustering from a recent semi-analytic model performed on a large cosmological $N$-body simulation covering a cubic gigaparsec comoving volume.
• We have introduced a new time-scale of gas accretion on to the supermassive black holes to account for the loss of the angular momentum on small scales, which is required to match the faint end of the observed X-ray LF.
• The large simulation box allows us accurate determination of the auto-correlation function of the AGNs.