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Large Dynamic Range Simulations of Galaxies Hosting Supermassive Black Holes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2011

Robyn Levine
Robyn Levine*
Affiliation:
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, 60 St. George St., Toronto, ON, M6G 1A6, Canada email: levine@cita.utoronto.ca
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Abstract

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The co-evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their host galaxies is a rich problem, spanning a large-dynamic range and depending on many physical processes. Simulating the transport of gas and angular momentum from super-galactic scales all the way down to the outer edge of the black hole's accretion disk requires sophisticated numerical techniques with extensive treatment of baryonic physics. We use a hydrodynamic adaptive mesh refinement simulation to follow the growth and evolution of a typical disk galaxy hosting an SMBH, in a cosmological context (covering a dynamical range of 10 million!). We have adopted a piecemeal approach, focusing our attention on the gas dynamics in the central few hundred parsecs of the simulated galaxy (with boundary conditions provided by the larger cosmological simulation), and beginning with a simplified picture (no mergers or feedback). In this scenario, we find that the circumnuclear disk remains marginally stable against catastrophic fragmentation, allowing stochastic fueling of gas into the vicinity of the SMBH. I will discuss the successes and the limitations of these simulations, and their future direction.

Keywords

galaxies: evolutiongalaxies: high-redshiftgalaxies: nuclei
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 6 , Symposium S271: Astrophysical Dynamics: From Stars to Galaxies , June 2010 , pp. 153 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2011

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