The growth of supermassive black holes fed by accretion disks

TL;DR

This study models the evolution of accretion disks feeding supermassive black holes, revealing that seeds typically accrete about half of the disk mass within 130-540 million years, supporting observed quasar and AGN features.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed numerical simulation of disk evolution, quantifying mass capture and timescales, and explaining the formation of torus-like structures in AGNs.

Findings

Seeds capture about 50% of the initial disk mass.

Accretion timescales range from 130 to 540 million years.

Development of torus-like structures explains AGN features.

Abstract

Supermassive black holes are probably present in the centre of the majority of the galaxies. There is a consensus that these exotic objects are formed by the growth of seeds either by accreting mass from a circumnuclear disk and/or by coalescences during merger episodes. The mass fraction of the disk captured by the central object and the related timescale are still open questions, as well as how these quantities depend on parameters like the initial mass of the disk or the seed or on the angular momentum transport mechanism. This paper is addressed to these particular aspects of the accretion disk evolution and of the growth of seeds. The time-dependent hydrodynamic equations were solved numerically for an axi-symmetric disk in which the gravitational potential includes contributions both from the central object and from the disk itself. The numerical code is based on a Eulerian formalism, using a finite difference method of second-order, according to the Van Leer upwind algorithm on a staggered mesh. The present simulations indicate that seeds capture about a half of the initial disk mass, a result weakly dependent on model parameters. The timescales required for accreting 50% of the disk mass are in the range 130-540 Myr, depending on the adopted parameters. These timescales permit to explain the presence of bright quasars at z ~ 6.5. Moreover, at the end of the disk evolution, a "torus-like" geometry develops, offering a natural explanation for the presence of these structures in the central regions of AGNs, representing an additional support to the unified model.