Eddington ratio and accretion efficiency in AGN evolution

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The cosmological evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is important for understanding the mechanism of accretion onto supermassive black holes, and the related evolution of the host galaxy. In this work, we include objects with very low Eddington ratio (10^{-3} - 10^{-2}) in an evolution scenario, and compare the results with the observed local distribution of black holes. We test several possibilities for the AGN population, considering obscuration and dependence with luminosity, and investigate the role of the Eddington ratio and radiative accretion efficiency on the shape of the evolved mass function. We find that three distinct populations of AGN can evolve with a wider parameter range than is usually considered, and still be consistent with the local mass function. In general, the black holes in our solutions are spinning rapidly. Taking fixed values for accretion efficiency and Eddington ratio neither provides a full knowledge of the evolution mechanism nor is consistent with the existence of low Eddington ratio objects.
Original languageEnglish
JournalRoyal Astronomical Society. Monthly Notices
Pages (from-to)1217-1221
ISSN0035-8711
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 19 Mar 2009
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 5 pages

    Research areas

  • astro-ph.GA

ID: 229380861