MNRAS-2016-Zubovas-496-509.pdf (3.76 MB)
A simple way to improve AGN feedback prescription in SPH simulations
journal contribution
posted on 2016-04-19, 09:19 authored by K. Zubovas, M. A. Bourne, Sergei NayakshinAGN feedback is an important ingredient in galaxy evolution, however its treatment in numerical simulations is necessarily approximate, requiring subgrid prescriptions due to the dynamical range involved in the calculations. We present a suite of SPH simulations designed to showcase the importance of the choice of a particular subgrid prescription for AGN feedback. We concentrate on two approaches to treating wide-angle AGN outflows: thermal feedback, where thermal and kinetic energy is injected into the gas surrounding the SMBH particle, and virtual particle feedback, where energy is carried by tracer particles radially away from the AGN. We show that the latter model produces a far more complex structure around the SMBH, which we argue is a more physically correct outcome. We suggest a simple improvement to the thermal feedback model - injecting the energy into a cone, rather than spherically symmetrically - and show that this markedly improves the agreement between the two prescriptions, without requiring any noticeable increase in the computational cost of the simulation.
History
Citation
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2016, 457(1) : 496-509Author affiliation
/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and AstronomyVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Published in
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical SocietyPublisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)issn
0035-8711eissn
1365-2966Acceptance date
2015-12-17Copyright date
2016Available date
2016-04-19Publisher DOI
Publisher version
http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/457/1/496Notes
16 pages, 13 figuresLanguage
enAdministrator link
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