Hot versus Cold: the Dichotomy in Spherical Accretion of Cooling Flows onto Supermassive Black Holes in Elliptical Galaxies, Galaxy Groups and Clusters

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to explore how cooling flows onto supermassive black holes differ in galaxy clusters versus smaller systems, revealing a dichotomy between hot and cold accretion modes influenced by system size, metallicity, and galaxy compactness.

Contribution

It identifies a dichotomy in accretion modes onto SMBHs in different systems and links these modes to physical properties like metallicity and galaxy size, advancing understanding of AGN feedback mechanisms.

Findings

Massive clusters develop a cooling catastrophe leading to cold-mode accretion.

Lower metallicity systems tend to have long-term hot-mode accretion.

Cuspy temperature profiles are more common in smaller systems.

Abstract

Feedback heating from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) has been commonly invoked to suppress cooling flows predicted in hot gas in elliptical galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters. Previous studies have focused on if and how AGN feedback heats the gas, but little paid attention to its triggering mechanism. Using spherically symmetric simulations, we investigate how large-scale cooling flows are accreted by central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in eight well-observed systems and find an interesting dichotomy. In massive clusters, the gas develops a central cooling catastrophe within about the cooling time (typically ~ 100 - 300 Myr), resulting in a cold-mode accretion onto SMBHs. However, in our four simulated systems on group and galaxy scales at a low metallicity Z=0.3Z_{sun}, the gas quickly settles into a long-term state which has a cuspy central temperature profile extending to several tens to about 100 pc. At the more realistic solar metallicity, two groups (with R_{e} ~ 4 kpc) still host the long-term hot-mode accretion. Both accretion modes naturally appear in our idealized calculations where only cooling, gas inflow, and compressional heating are considered. The long-term hot-mode accretion is maintained by the quickly-established closeness between the timescales of these processes, preferably in systems with low gas densities, low gas metallicities, and importantly, compact central galaxies, which result in strong gravitational acceleration and compressional heating at the intermediate radii. Our calculations predict that central cuspy temperature profiles appear more often in smaller systems than galaxy clusters, which instead often host significant cold gas and star formation.