High-redshift galaxies, their active nuclei and central black holes

Abstract

We demonstrate that the luminosity function of the recently detected population of star-forming galaxies and the QSO luminosity function at z=3 can be matched with the mass function of dark matter haloes predicted by hierarchical cosmogonies for lifetimes of optically bright QSOs in the range 10^6 to 10^8 yr. We suggest that the mass of supermassive black holes may be limited by the back-reaction of the emitted energy on the accretion flow in a self-gravitating disc. This would imply a relation of black hole to halo mass of the form M_bh ~(v_halo)^5 and a typical duration of the optically bright QSO phase of a few times 10^7 yr. The high integrated mass density of black holes inferred from recent black hole mass estimates in nearby galaxies may indicate that the overall efficiency of supermassive black holes for producing blue light is smaller than previously assumed. We discuss three possible accretion modes with low optical emission efficiency: (i) accretion at far above the Eddington rate, (ii) accretion obscured by dust, and (iii) accretion below the critical rate leading to an advection dominated accretion flow lasting for a Hubble time. We further argue that accretion with low optical efficiency might be closely related to the origin of the hard X-ray background and that the ionizing background might be progressively dominated by stars rather than QSOs at higher redshift.