A new model for dark matter halos hosting quasars

Abstract

A new model for quasar-hosting dark matter halos, meeting two physical conditions, is put forth. First, significant interactions are taken into consideration to trigger quasar activities. Second, satellites in very massive halos at low redshift are removed from consideration due to their deficiency in cold gas. We analyze the Millennium Simulation to find halos that meet these two conditions and simultaneously match two-point auto-correlation functions of quasars and cross-correlation functions between quasars and galaxies at z = 0.5-3.2. The masses of the quasar hosts found decrease with decreasing redshift, with the mass thresholds being [(2-5) × 1012, (2-5) × 1011, (1-3) × 1011] M⊙ for median luminosities of ∼[1046, 1046, 1045] erg s-1 at z = (3.2, 1.4, 0.53), respectively, an order of magnitude lower than those inferred based on halo occupation distribution modeling. In this model, quasar hosts are primarily massive central halos at z ≥ 2-3 but increasingly dominated by lower mass satellite halos experiencing major interactions toward lower redshift. However, below z = 1, satellite halos in groups more massive than ∼2 × 1013 M⊙ do not host quasars. Whether for central or satellite halos, imposing the condition of significant interactions substantially boosts the clustering strength compared to the total population with the same mass cut. The inferred lifetimes of quasars at z = 0.5-3.2 of 3-30 Myr are in agreement with observations. Quasars at z ∼ 2 would be hosted by halos of mass ∼5 × 1011 M⊙ in this model, compared to ∼3 × 1012 M⊙ previously thought, which would help reconcile with the observed, otherwise puzzling high covering fractions for Lyman limit systems around quasars.