English

Redshift Evolution of the Ratio of Supermassive Black Hole Mass to Stellar Mass

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2026-05-07 v1

Abstract

We run and analyze a suite of high-redshift zoom-in cosmological simulations with varying supernova feedback and supermassive black hole (SMBH) accretion prescriptions to study the joint evolution of stellar and SMBH mass in high-redshift galaxies down to z=10z=10. The simulations reproduce the observed high-zz MBH/MM_{\mathrm{BH}}/M_{\star} relation if super-Eddington accretion is allowed prior to the final self-regulated phase. To extend the evolution to lower redshift, we model subsequent black hole and host growth using analytic halo assembly histories combined with a redshift-dependent effective Eddington duty cycle, fduty=0.0004(1+z)3f_{\rm duty}=0.0004(1+z)^3, calibrated to observations at z6z\le6, with conservative uncertainties at higher redshift. Within this framework, MBH/MM_{\mathrm{BH}}/M_{\star} exhibits a broad peak at z7z\sim7--10, reaching a few percent up to 30%\sim30\%, followed by a steady, approximately power-law decline toward z=0z=0. The model predicts MBH/M(0.002,0.003,0.006,0.016,0.071,0.156)M_{\mathrm{BH}}/M_{\star}\sim(0.002,0.003,0.006,0.016,0.071,0.156) at z=(0,1,2,3,5,10)z=(0,1,2,3,5,10), consistent with available observations. This evolution is driven by rapid SMBH growth at high redshift, with effective mass e-folding times shorter than those of stellar mass, while at later times galaxy growth dominates, leading to the decline in MBH/MM_{\mathrm{BH}}/M_{\star}. These results demonstrate that the emergence of a high-redshift peak and subsequent decline is robust despite uncertainties in the duty-cycle normalization.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.04776,
  title  = {Redshift Evolution of the Ratio of Supermassive Black Hole Mass to Stellar Mass},
  author = {Ziyong Wu and Renyue Cen and Romain Teyssier},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.04776},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

16 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal