Spectral and morphological properties of quasar hosts in smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of active galactic nucleus feeding by mergers

Andrea Cattaneo (1) , Françoise Combes (2, 3) , Stephane Colombi (4) , Emmanuel Bertin (5) , Anne-Laure Melchior (2, 3)

1 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
2 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
3 Galaxies et cosmologie
4 AIP - Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam
5 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris

We present a method for generating virtual observations from smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. This method includes stellar population synthesis models and the reprocessing of starlight by dust to produce realistic galaxy images. We apply this method and simulate the merging of two identical giant Sa galaxies (M_disc= 10¹¹ M_solar, M_spheroid= 2.5 × 10¹⁰ M_solar). The merger remnant is an elliptical galaxy (M_spheroid~= 1.3 × 10¹¹ M_solar, M_disc~= 7.4 × 10¹⁰ M_solar). The merger concentrates the gas content of the two galaxies into the nuclear region. The gas that flows into the nuclear region refuels the central black holes of the merging galaxies. We follow the refuelling of the black holes during the merger semi-analytically.

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Andrea Cattaneo, Françoise Combes, Stephane Colombi, Emmanuel Bertin, Anne-Laure Melchior. Spectral and morphological properties of quasar hosts in smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of active galactic nucleus feeding by mergers. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2005, 359, pp.1237-1249. ⟨hal-03732548⟩