The Illustris simulation: the evolving population of black holes across cosmic time

Abstract

We study the properties of black holes and their host galaxies across cosmic time in the Illustris simulation. Illustris is a large-scale cosmological hydrodynamical simulation which resolves a (106.5 Mpc)(3) volume with more than 12 billion resolution elements and includes state-of-the-art physical models relevant for galaxy formation. We find that the black hole mass density for redshifts z = 0-5 and the black hole mass function at z = 0 predicted by Illustris are in very good agreement with the most recent observational constraints. We show that the bolometric and hard X-ray luminosity functions of active galactic nuclei (AGN) at z = 0 and 1 reproduce observational data very well over the full dynamic range probed. Unless the bolometric corrections are largely underestimated, this requires radiative efficiencies to be on average low, epsilon(r) less than or similar to 0.1, noting however that in our model radiative efficiencies are degenerate with black hole feedback efficiencies. Cosmic downsizing of the AGN population is in broad agreement with the findings from X-ray surveys, but we predict a larger number density of faint AGN at high redshifts than currently inferred. We also study black hole-host galaxy scaling relations as a function of galaxy morphology, colour and specific star formation rate. We find that black holes and galaxies co-evolve at the massive end, but for low mass, blue and star-forming galaxies there is no tight relation with either their central black hole masses or the nuclear AGN activity.