English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

We explore the growth of  ≤10 7  M ⊙   black holes that reside at the centres of spiral and field dwarf galaxies in a Local Group type of environment. We use merger trees from a cosmological  N ‐body simulation known as Via Lactea 2 (VL‐2) as a framework to test two merger‐driven semi‐analytic recipes for black hole growth that include dynamical friction, tidal stripping and gravitational wave recoil in over 20 000 merger tree realizations. First, we apply a Fundamental Plane limited (FPL) model to the growth of Sgr A*, which drives the central black hole to a maximum mass limited by the black hole Fundamental Plane after every merger. Next, we present a new model that allows for low‐level prolonged gas accretion (PGA) during the merger. We find that both models can generate an Sgr A* mass black hole. We predict a population of massive black holes in local field dwarf galaxies – if the VL‐2 simulation is representative of the growth of the Local Group, we predict up to 35 massive black holes ( ≤10 6  M ⊙  ) in Local Group field dwarfs. We also predict that hundreds of  ≤10 5  M ⊙   black holes fail to merge, and instead populate the Milky Way halo, with the most massive of them at roughly the virial radius. In addition, we find that there may be hundreds of massive black holes ejected from their hosts into the nearby intergalactic medium due to gravitational wave recoil. We discuss how the black hole population in the Local Group field dwarfs may help to constrain the growth mechanism for Sgr A*.

Growing massive black holes in a Local Group environment: the central supermassive, slowly sinking and ejected populations