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Black Hole

Lensing of space time around a black hole. At Oxford we study black holes observationally and theoretically on all size and time scales - it is some of our core work.

Credit: ALAIN RIAZUELO, IAP/UPMC/CNRS. CLICK HERE TO VIEW MORE IMAGES.

Julien Devriendt

Professor of Astrophysics

Research theme

  • Astronomy and astrophysics
  • Particle astrophysics & cosmology

Sub department

  • Astrophysics

Research groups

  • Beecroft Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
  • Cosmology
  • Galaxy formation and evolution
julien.devriendt@physics.ox.ac.uk
Telephone: 01865 (2)73307
Denys Wilkinson Building, room 555D
  • About
  • Teaching
  • Publications

Supermassive black hole growth in hierarchically merging nuclear star clusters

(2024)

Authors:

Konstantinos Kritos, Ricarda S Beckmann, Joseph Silk, Emanuele Berti, Sophia Yi, Marta Volonteri, Yohan Dubois, Julien Devriendt

Impact of star formation models on the growth of simulated galaxies at high redshifts

Astronomy & Astrophysics EDP Sciences 693 (2024) ARTN A149

Authors:

Cheonsu Kang, Taysun Kimm, Daniel Han, Harley Katz, Julien Devriendt, Adrianne Slyz, Romain Teyssier

Abstract:

<jats:p>Star formation is a key process that governs the baryon cycle within galaxies, however, the question of how it controls their growth remains elusive due to modeling uncertainties. To understand the impact of star formation models on galaxy evolution, we performed cosmological zoom-in radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of a dwarf dark matter halo, with a virial mass of <jats:italic>M</jats:italic><jats:sub>vir</jats:sub> ∼ 10<jats:sup>9</jats:sup> <jats:italic>M</jats:italic><jats:sub>⊙</jats:sub> at <jats:italic>z</jats:italic> = 6. We compared two different star formation models: a multi-freefall model combined with a local gravo-thermo-turbulent condition and a more self-consistent model based on a sink particle algorithm, where gas accretion and star formation are directly controlled by the gas kinematics. As the first study in this series, we used cosmological zoom-in simulations with different spatial resolutions and found that star formation is more bursty in the runs with the sink algorithm, generating stronger outflows than in the runs with the gravo-thermo-turbulent model. The main reason for the increased burstiness is that the gas accretion rates on the sinks are high enough to form stars on very short timescales, leading to more clustered star formation. As a result, the star-forming clumps are disrupted more quickly in the sink run due to more coherent radiation and supernova feedback. The difference in burstiness between the two star formation models becomes even more pronounced when the supernova explosion energy is artificially increased. Our results suggest that improving the modeling of star formation on small, sub-molecular cloud scales can significantly impact the global properties of simulated galaxies.</jats:p>

Black hole spin evolution across cosmic time from the NewHorizon simulation

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press (OUP) 536:2 (2024) stae2595

Authors:

Rs Beckmann, Y Dubois, M Volonteri, Ca Dong-Paez, S Peirani, Jm Piotrowska, G Martin, K Kraljic, J Devriendt, C Pichon, Sk Yi

Abstract:

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title> <jats:p>Astrophysical black holes (BHs) have two fundamental properties: mass and spin. While the mass-evolution of BHs has been extensively studied, much less work has been done on predicting the distribution of BH spins. In this paper, we present the spin evolution for a sample of intermediate-mass and massive BHs from the NewHorizon simulation, which evolved BH spin across cosmic time in a full cosmological context through gas accretion, BH–BH mergers and BH feedback including jet spindown. As BHs grow, their spin evolution alternates between being dominated by gas accretion and BH mergers. Massive BHs are generally highly spinning. Accounting for the spin energy extracted through the Blandford–Znajek mechanism increases the scatter in BH spins, especially in the mass range $10^{5}{-}10^{7}\,\rm M_\odot$, where BHs had previously been predicted to be almost universally maximally spinning. We find no evidence for spin-down through efficient chaotic accretion. As a result of their high spin values, massive BHs have an average radiative efficiency of $\lt \varepsilon _{\rm r}^{\rm thin}\gt \approx 0.19$. As BHs spend much of their time at low redshift with a radiatively inefficient thick disc, BHs in our sample remain hard to observe. Different observational methods probe different sub-populations of BHs, significantly influencing the observed distribution of spins. Generally, X-ray-based methods and higher luminosity cuts increase the average observed BH spin. When taking BH spin evolution into account, BHs inject, on average, between three times (in quasar mode) and eight times (in radio mode) as much feedback energy into their host galaxy as previously assumed.</jats:p>

New tools for studying planarity in galaxy satellite systems: Milky Way satellite planes are consistent with {\Lambda}CDM

(2024)

Authors:

E Uzeirbegovic, G Martin, S Kaviraj, RA Jackson, K Kraljic, Y Dubois, C Pichon, J Devriendt, S Peirani, J Silk, SK Yi

New tools for studying planarity in galaxy satellite systems: Milky Way satellite planes are consistent with ΛCDM

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 535:4 (2024) stae2632

Authors:

E Uzeirbegovic, G Martin, S Kaviraj, Ra Jackson, K Kraljic, Y Dubois, C Pichon, J Devriendt, S Peirani, J Silk, Sk Yi

Abstract:

We introduce a new concept - termed 'planarity' - which aims to quantify planar structure in galaxy satellite systems without recourse to the number or thickness of planes. We use positions and velocities from the Gaia EDR3 to measure planarity in Milky Way (MW) satellites and the extent to which planes within the MW system are kinematically supported. We show that the position vectors of the MW satellites exhibit strong planarity but the velocity vectors do not, and that kinematic coherence cannot, therefore, be confirmed from current observational data. We then apply our methodology to NewHorizon, a high-resolution cosmological simulation, to compare satellite planarity in MW-like galaxies in a Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM)-based model to that in the MW satellite data. We demonstrate that kinematically supported planes are common in the simulation and that the observed planarity of MW satellites is not in tension with the standard ΛCDM paradigm.

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