The Connection between Mergers and AGN Activity in Simulated and Observed Massive Galaxies

Understand

We analyze a suite of $30$ high resolution zoom-in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of massive galaxies with stellar masses $M_{\ast} > 10^{10.9} M_\odot$, with the goal of better understanding merger activity in AGN, AGN activity in merging systems, SMBH growth during mergers, and the role of gas content.

• Using the radiative transfer code \textsc{Powderday}, we generate HST-WFC3 F160W synthetic observations of redshift $0.5 < z < 3$ central galaxies, add noise properties similar to the CANDELS survey, and measure morphological properties from the synthetic images using commonly adopted non-parametric statistics.
• We compare the distributions of morphological properties measured from the synthetic images with a sample of inactive galaxies and X-ray selected AGN hosts from CANDELS.
• We study the connection between mergers and AGN activity in the simulations, the synthetic images, and the observed CANDELS sample.