Cosmic evolution of black hole spin and galaxy orientations: Clues from the NewHorizon and Galactica simulations

Black holes (BHs) are ubiquitous components of the center of most galaxies. In addition to their mass, the BH spin, through its amplitude and orientation, is a key factor in the galaxy formation process, as it controls the radiative efficiency of the accretion disk and relativistic jets. Using the r...

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Published in:Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin) 2024-06, Vol.686
Main Authors: Peirani, Sebastien, Suto, Yasushi, Beckmann, Ricarda S., Volonteri, Marta, Lin, Yen-Ting, Dubois, Yohan, Yi, Sukyoung K., Pichon, Christophe, Kraljic, Katarina, Park, Minjung, Devriendt, Julien, Han, San, Chen, Wei-Huai
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accretion disks
Acquisitions & mergers
Alignment
Angular momentum
Astrophysics
Black holes
Dimensional analysis
Galactic evolution
Galaxies
Misalignment
Monte Carlo simulation
Physics
Star & galaxy formation
Stars & galaxies
Three dimensional analysis
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Summary:Black holes (BHs) are ubiquitous components of the center of most galaxies. In addition to their mass, the BH spin, through its amplitude and orientation, is a key factor in the galaxy formation process, as it controls the radiative efficiency of the accretion disk and relativistic jets. Using the recent cosmological high-resolution zoom-in simulations and in which the evolution of the BH spin is followed on the fly, we have tracked the cosmic history of a hundred BHs with a mass greater than $2 For each of them, we have studied the variations of the three-dimensional angle (Psi ) subtended between the BH spins and the angular momentum vectors of their host galaxies (estimated from the stellar component). The analysis of the individual evolution of the most massive BHs suggests that they are generally passing by three different regimes. First, for a short period after their birth, low-mass BHs BH $10$^5$ M$_ In this case, the BH spins tend to be well aligned with the angular momentum of their host galaxy and this configuration is generally stable even though BH merger episodes can temporally induce misalignment. We even find a few cases of BH-galaxy spin anti-alignment that lasts for a long time in which the gas component is counter-rotating with respect to the stellar component. We have also derived the distributions of cos(Psi ) at different redshifts and found that BHs and galaxy spins are generally aligned. Our analysis suggests that the fraction of BH-galaxy pairs with low Psi values reaches maximum at zsim 4-3 and then decreases until zsim 1.5 due to the high BH-merger rate. Afterward, it remains almost constant probably due to the fact that BH mergers becomes rare, except for a slight increase at late times. Finally, based on a Monte Carlo method, we also predict statistics for the 2-d projected spin-orbit angles lambda . In partic
ISSN:0004-6361
1432-0746
1432-0756
DOI:10.1051/0004-6361/202349101