The Impact Radiation Plays in Black Hole Accretion and AGN Feedback

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/cn69m579v

Abstract

Accretion disks play a critical role in determining how supermassive black holes grow and how the structure of galaxies form through Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) feedback. Accounting for radiation physics within the disk is crucial for putting together an accretion theory because radiation affects mass transfer. My thesis aims to determine how accounting for radiation within an accretion disk impacts its various properties and how this, in turn, impacts galactic structure through AGN feedback. The SMAUG collaboration code used in this thesis is the first galaxy scale simulation to explicitly model a 2-D accretion disk at the 0.1 pc resolution while accounting for radiation effects. I use data from SMAUG to calculate various radial profile accretion variables, such as sound speed, density, radial velocity, temperature, and net mass accretion, to see how they change due to radiation. These are then compared to the same variables obtained from the analytical 1-D Bondi equations to verify the SMAUG simulations are performing as anticipated. I find accounting for radiation within the disk increases sound speed and increases disk temperature, while the other stated radial profiles remain unchanged. The increase in disk temperature suggests the star formation rate in a galaxy will decrease due to the radiative mode in the simulated AGN.

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	Honors_Thesis__AGN_Feedback.pdf	2024-04-17	Public	Download
	PlotT_ratios_ComboRad_ComboBondi_Tratio_Tratio_profile_0_1_5_15_25_40.pdf	2024-04-17	Public	Download