TY - JOUR
T1 - Using Real and Simulated Measurements of the Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect to Constrain Models of AGN Feedback
AU - Spacek, Alexander
AU - Richardson, Mark L.A.
AU - Scannapieco, Evan
AU - Devriendt, Julien
AU - Dubois, Yohan
AU - Peirani, Sebastien
AU - Pichon, Christophe
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/10/1
Y1 - 2018/10/1
N2 - Energetic feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is often used in simulations to resolve several outstanding issues in galaxy formation, but its impact is still not fully understood. Here, we derive new constraints on AGN feedback by comparing observations and simulations of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect. We draw on previous observational results that used data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) to measure the tSZ signal from ≥1011 M o and ≥1 Gyr galaxies at z = 0.5-1.0 (low-z) and z = 1.0-1.5 (high-z). Using the large-scale cosmological hydrodynamical simulations Horizon-AGN and Horizon-NoAGN, which include and omit AGN feedback, we extract simulated tSZ measurements around galaxies equivalent to the observational work. We find that the Horizon-AGN results only differ from the SPT measurements at levels of 0.4σ (low-z) and 0.6σ (high-z), but differ from the ACT measurements by 3.4σ (low-z) and 2.3σ (high-z). The Horizon-noAGN results provide a slightly better fit to the SPT measurements by differing by 0.2σ (low-z) and 0.4σ (high-z), but are a significantly better match to the ACT measurements by differing by only 0.5σ (low-z) and 1.4σ (high-z). We conclude that, while the lower-mass (≲5 × 1011 M o) SPT results allow for the presence AGN feedback energy, the higher-mass (5 × 1011 M o) ACT results show significantly less energy than predicted in the simulation including AGN feedback, while more closely matching the simulation without AGN feedback, indicating that AGN feedback may be milder than often predicted in simulations.
AB - Energetic feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is often used in simulations to resolve several outstanding issues in galaxy formation, but its impact is still not fully understood. Here, we derive new constraints on AGN feedback by comparing observations and simulations of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect. We draw on previous observational results that used data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) to measure the tSZ signal from ≥1011 M o and ≥1 Gyr galaxies at z = 0.5-1.0 (low-z) and z = 1.0-1.5 (high-z). Using the large-scale cosmological hydrodynamical simulations Horizon-AGN and Horizon-NoAGN, which include and omit AGN feedback, we extract simulated tSZ measurements around galaxies equivalent to the observational work. We find that the Horizon-AGN results only differ from the SPT measurements at levels of 0.4σ (low-z) and 0.6σ (high-z), but differ from the ACT measurements by 3.4σ (low-z) and 2.3σ (high-z). The Horizon-noAGN results provide a slightly better fit to the SPT measurements by differing by 0.2σ (low-z) and 0.4σ (high-z), but are a significantly better match to the ACT measurements by differing by only 0.5σ (low-z) and 1.4σ (high-z). We conclude that, while the lower-mass (≲5 × 1011 M o) SPT results allow for the presence AGN feedback energy, the higher-mass (5 × 1011 M o) ACT results show significantly less energy than predicted in the simulation including AGN feedback, while more closely matching the simulation without AGN feedback, indicating that AGN feedback may be milder than often predicted in simulations.
KW - cosmic background radiation
KW - galaxies: evolution
KW - intergalactic medium
KW - large-scale structure of universe
KW - quasars: general
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/aada01
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/aada01
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85054818106
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 865
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 2
M1 - 109
ER -