Tuesday, April 16, 2013

1304.3717 (Gert Hütsi et al.)

Linking X-ray AGN with dark matter halos: a model compatible with AGN luminosity function and large-scale clustering properties    [PDF]

Gert Hütsi, Marat Gilfanov, Rashid Sunyaev
Our goal is to find a minimalistic model describing the luminosity function and large-scale clustering bias of the X-ray selected AGN in the general framework of the concordance LCDM model. We assume that a simple population-averaged scaling relation between the AGN X-ray luminosity L_X and the host dark matter halo mass M_h exists. With such a relation, the AGN X-ray luminosity function can be computed from the halo mass function. Using for the latter the concordance LCDM halo mass function, we obtain the M_h-L_X relation required to match the redshift dependent AGN X-ray luminosity function known from X-ray observations. We find that with a simple power law scaling M_h \propto L_X^\Gamma(z), our model can successfully reproduce the observed X-ray luminosity function. Furthermore, we automatically obtain predictions for the large-scale AGN clustering amplitudes and their dependence on the luminosity and redshift, which seem to be compatible with AGN clustering measurements. Our model also includes the redshift-dependent AGN duty cycle which peaks at the redshift z ~ 1 and its peak value is consistent with unity, suggesting that on average there is no more than one AGN per dark matter halo. For a typical X-ray selected AGN at z ~ 1, our best-fit M_h-L_X scaling implies low Eddington ratio L_X/L_Edd ~ 10^{-4}-10^{-3} and correspondingly large mass growth e-folding times, suggesting that the typical X-ray AGN are dominantly fueled via relatively inefficient 'hot-halo' accretion mode.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.3717

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