The interconnection between galaxy mergers, AGN activity and rapid quenching of star formation in simulated post-merger galaxies

TL;DR

This study compares three cosmological simulations to understand how galaxy mergers influence SMBH activity and star formation quenching, revealing that rapid quenching is rare and varies across models, with a weaker link to mergers than observations suggest.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of galaxy merger effects on SMBH accretion and quenching across different simulation physics models, highlighting discrepancies with observational data.

Findings

Post-mergers show elevated SMBH accretion rates.

Rapid quenching within 500 Myr is rare in simulations.

Simulations underpredict the frequency of merger-induced rapid quenching.

Abstract

We investigate the role of galaxy mergers on supermassive black hole (SMBH) accretion and star formation quenching in three state-of-the-art cosmological simulations with contrasting physics models: EAGLE, Illustris and IllustrisTNG. We find that recently coalesced 'post-mergers' in all three simulations have elevated SMBH accretion rates by factors of ~2-5. However, rapid (within 500 Myr of coalescence) quenching of star formation is rare, with incidence rates of 0.4% in Illustris, 4.5% in EAGLE and 10% in IllustrisTNG. The rarity of quenching in post-mergers results from substantial gas reservoirs that remain intact after the merger. The post-mergers that do successfully quench tend to be those that had both low pre-merger gas fractions as well as those that experience the largest gas losses. Although rare, the recently quenched fraction of post-mergers is still elevated compared to a control sample of non-mergers by factors of two in IllustrisTNG and 11 in EAGLE. Conversely, quenching is rarer in Illustris post-mergers than in their control. Recent observational results by Ellison et al. have found rapid quenching to be at least 30 times more common in post-mergers, a significantly higher excess than found in any of the simulations. Our results, therefore, indicate that whilst merger-induced SMBH accretion is a widespread prediction of the simulations, its link to quenching depends sensitively on the physics models, and that none of the subgrid models of the simulations studied here can fully capture the connection between mergers and rapid quenching seen in observations.