The non-causal origin of the black hole-galaxy scaling relations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the observed black hole-galaxy scaling relations can arise from hierarchical galaxy merging without requiring causal feedback mechanisms, challenging the traditional view of co-evolution.

Contribution

It shows that the black hole-bulge mass relations can be explained by non-causal hierarchical assembly, without the need for AGN feedback or coupled growth.

Findings

Scaling relations can be reproduced without causal coupling.

Simulations match observed slope of ~1.1 at z=0.

AGN feedback is not necessary for galaxy evolution.

Abstract

We show that the black hole-bulge mass scaling relations observed from the local to the high-z Universe can be largely or even entirely explained by a non-causal origin, i.e. they do not imply the need for any physically coupled growth of black hole and bulge mass, for example through feedback by active galactic nuclei (AGN). Provided some physics for the absolute normalisation, the creation of the scaling relations can be fully explained by the hierarchical assembly of black hole and stellar mass through galaxy merging, from an initially uncorrelated distribution of BH and stellar masses in the early Universe. We show this with a suite of dark matter halo merger trees for which we make assumptions about (uncorrelated) black hole and stellar mass values at early cosmic times. We then follow the halos in the presence of global star formation and black hole accretion recipes that (i) work without any coupling of the two properties per individual galaxy and (ii) correctly reproduce the observed star formation and black hole accretion rate density in the Universe. With disk-to-bulge conversion in mergers included, our simulations even create the observed slope of ~1.1 for the M_BH-M_bulge-relations at z=0. This also implies that AGN feedback is not a required (though still a possible) ingredient in galaxy evolution. In light of this, other mechanisms that can be invoked to truncate star formation in massive galaxies are equally justified.