Interacting galaxies in the IllustrisTNG simulations -- IV: Enhanced Supermassive Black Hole Accretion Rates in Post-Merger Galaxies

TL;DR

This study analyzes supermassive black hole accretion in post-merger galaxies from the IllustrisTNG simulation, revealing that mergers enhance accretion rates and AGN activity, but most luminous AGNs are not recent mergers.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the duration and likelihood of AGN activity following galaxy mergers using a large simulation dataset.

Findings

Post-mergers have 1.7 times higher SMBH accretion rates.

Post-mergers are 3-4 times more likely to host luminous AGN.

Only about 35% of post-mergers host luminous AGN within 500 Myrs.

Abstract

We present an analysis of the instantaneous supermassive black hole (SMBH) accretion rates in a collection of 1563 post-merger galaxies drawn from the IllustrisTNG simulation. Our sample consists of galaxies that have experienced a merger in the last simulation snapshot (within ~160 Myrs of coalescence) in the redshift range 0<z<1, with merger stellar mass ratios >1:10 and post-merger stellar masses > $10^{10} M_{\odot}$. We find that, on average, the accretion rates of the post-mergers are ~1.7 times higher than in a control sample and that post-mergers are 3-4 times more likely to experience a luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) phase than isolated galaxies. SMBH accretion rate enhancements persist for ~2 Gyrs after coalescence, significantly exceeding the ~500 Myr lifetime of star formation rate enhancements. We find that the presence of simultaneous enhancements in both the star formation and SMBH accretion rates depends on both the mass ratio of the merger and on the gas mass of the post-merger galaxy. Despite these accretion rate enhancements, only ~35% of post-mergers experience a luminous AGN ($L_{bol}>10^{44}$ erg/s) within 500 Myrs after coalescence, and fewer than 10\% achieve a luminosity in excess of $L_{bol}>10^{45}$ erg/s. Moreover, only ~10\% of the highest luminosity ($L_{bol}>10^{45}$ erg/s) AGN in the IllustrisTNG galaxy sample are recent mergers. Our results are therefore consistent with a picture in which mergers can (but don't always) trigger AGN activity, but where the majority of galaxies hosting high luminosity AGN are not recent mergers.