The Drivers of the Decline in Supermassive Black Hole Growth at $z<2$

TL;DR

This study investigates the decline in supermassive black hole growth since redshift 2, revealing that decreasing accretion rates, rather than shifts in SMBH mass or activity duty cycle, primarily drive this trend.

Contribution

It quantifies the decline in SMBH growth and identifies the decreasing Eddington ratio as the main driver, providing new insights into cosmic SMBH evolution.

Findings

Eddington ratio decreases by 1.35 dex from z~2 to z~0.2

Shift in dominant SMBH accretion from high- to low-Eddington ratio AGNs

Decline in SMBH growth in less-massive galaxies driven by luminosity decrease

Abstract

It is well established that cosmic supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth peaks at $z\approx1.5-2$, followed by a strong decline of $\approx1-1.5\,\rm dex$ toward the present day, with the comoving number density of higher-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGNs) peaking at higher redshift (referred to as "AGN downsizing"). We leverage the best current measurements of the SMBH accretion distribution, based upon data from nine well-characterized extragalactic fields with a "wedding-cake" design, to investigate and quantify the drivers of the drastic decline in cosmic SMBH growth. The decline in the typical Eddington ratio ($\lambda_\mathrm{Edd}$) of AGNs (decreasing by $\approx1.35\,\rm dex$ from $z\approx1.5-2$ to $z\approx0.2$) is the dominant driver for the broad decline in SMBH growth, rather than a shift of accretion activity to less-massive SMBHs. As $\lambda_\mathrm{Edd}$ decreases toward lower redshift, the primary contributor to the cosmic SMBH accretion density ($\rho_\mathrm{BHAR}$) has shifted from high-$\lambda_\mathrm{Edd}$ AGNs to low-$\lambda_\mathrm{Edd}$ AGNs, even though the latter always dominate the comoving AGN number density at $z<4$. We also find that the decline in SMBH growth toward lower SMBH mass in less-massive galaxies is primarily due to the decreasing outburst luminosity rather than the duty cycle.