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Numerical resolution effects on simulations of massive black hole seeds

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Regan, JA 
Johansson, PH 
Haehnelt, MG 

Abstract

We have performed high-resolution numerical simulations with the hydrodynamical AMR code Enzo to investigate the formation of massive seed black holes in a sample of six dark matter haloes above the atomic cooling threshold. The aim of this study is to illustrate the effects of varying the maximum refinement level on the final object formed. The virial temperatures of the simulated haloes range from T∼10000 K−16000 K and they have virial masses in the range M∼2×107M to M∼7×107M at z∼15. The outcome of our six fiducial simulations is both generic and robust. A rotationally supported, marginally gravitationally stable, disk forms with an exponential profile. The mass and scale length of this disk depends strongly on the maximum refinement level used. Varying the maximum refinement level by factors between 1 / 64 to 256 times the fiducial level illustrates the care that must be taken in interpreting the results. The lower resolution simulations show tentative evidence that the gas may become rotationally supported out to 20 pc while the highest resolution simulations show only weak evidence of rotational support due to the shorter dynamical times for which the simulation runs. The higher resolution simulations do, however, point to fragmentation at small scales of the order of ∼100 AU. In the highest resolution simulations a central object of a few times 102 M forms with multiple strongly bound, Jeans unstable, clumps of ∼10 M and radii of 10 - 20 AU suggesting the formation of dense star clusters in these haloes.

Description

Keywords

black hole physics, methods: numerical, cosmology: theory, large-scale structure of Universe

Journal Title

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0035-8711
1365-2966

Volume Title

439

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)