Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2009-07-06
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
To appear in MNRAS Letters
Scientific paper
It is now well established that many galaxies have nuclear star clusters (NCs) whose total masses correlate with the velocity dispersion (sigma) of the galaxy spheroid in a very similar way to the well--known supermassive black hole (SMBH) M - sigma relation. Previous theoretical work suggested that both correlations can be explained by a momentum feedback argument. Observations further show that most known NCs have masses < 10^8 Msun, while SMBHs frequently have masses > 10^8 Msun, which remained unexplained in previous work. We suggest here that this changeover reflects a competition between the SMBH and nuclear clusters in the feedback they produce. When one of the massive objects reaches its limiting M-sigma value, it drives the gas away and hence cuts off its own mass and also the mass of the ``competitor''. The latter is then underweight with respect to the expected M-sigma mass (abridged).
King Andrew
Nayakshin Sergei
Wilkinson Mark I.
No associations
LandOfFree
Competitive feedback in galaxy formation does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Competitive feedback in galaxy formation, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Competitive feedback in galaxy formation will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-27903