Small hosts, big appetites: unveiling rapid and early low-mass black hole growth in cosmological zoom-in simulations of dwarf galaxies

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ID: 329497
2026
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Abstract
Abstract Dwarf galaxies are ideal laboratories to probe the interplay between galaxy formation and the growth of black holes (BHs) in the early Universe. Mounting observational evidence reveals the presence of BHs in low-mass galaxies across cosmic time, with JWST uncovering a likely population of overmassive BHs at 2 ≲ z ≲ 11. Simulations struggle to reproduce this high-redshift regime, motivating revisions to models of BH accretion and feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN). To address this, we present high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations of a dwarf galaxy based on fable physics, introducing novel sink-based BH accretion models and relaxing the fiducial assumption of strong supernova feedback. BHs accrete more efficiently in the sink-based runs compared to the ‘traditional’ Bondi-based counterparts, with AGN feedback leading to early, rapid quenching maintained by fast, hot and metal-enriched outflows. These outflows pollute the outer circumgalactic medium, yielding flat metallicity gradients down to z = 0. We further assess the performance of two widely used virial estimators and find significant departures from the true dynamical mass, especially during the high-redshift dwarf assembly. Since our galaxy is dark-matter-dominated at all times and radii, BH growth, tied to the baryon cycle, shows no clear correlation with global dynamical properties. Efficient AGN feedback is produced by overmassive BHs relative to extrapolated local M• − M⋆ relations, raising the possibility that dormant, overmassive BHs in local quenched dwarfs and those probed by JWST may reflect a common mode of early and rapid BH growth in low-mass galaxies.
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Authors Giulia Ortame, Martin A. Bourne, Sophie Koudmani, Debora Sijacki, Francesco D'Eugenio, Roberto Maiolino
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Journal monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/mnras/stag1797
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1797
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