The impact of magnetic fields on gas accretion onto supermassive black holes and AGN feedback: the next frontier of galaxy formation cosmological simu

It is now well established that the main mechanism to fuel super massive black holes (SMBH) around which a sub-parsec sized accretion disk is spinning, is the magneto-rotational instability (Balbus & Hawley 1991). There also exists compelling observational evidence that SMBHs are ubiquitous and play an important role in regulating galaxy properties (mass, size, morphology) through extremely energetic AGN feedback events. However, cosmological galaxy formation simulations, by and large, ignore the effect of magnetic fields. Presumably this failure reflects the fact that star formation and stellar feedback, and SMBH formation,
accretion and feedback, take place on extremely small, sub-galactic scales, making it a tremendous challenge for simulations to model them with reasonable accuracy whilst resolving the galaxy larger scale environment at the same time.

Building on previous work within our group (Beckmann, Devriendt, Slyz 2018, Beckmann, Slyz & Devriendt 2019, Martin-Alvarez et al 2018, Katz, Martin-Alvarez et al 2019, Martin-Alvarez et al 2020), the aim of this DPhil project is to develop a fully magnetised implementation of SMBHs and AGN feedback in an explicit cosmological context.

The DPhil project will have several steps starting from revisiting the classic Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion model onto a point source to magnetize it, placing the black hole within an isolated galactic disk, adding AGN feedback to it before finally moving to the cosmological environment.
The student will also develop a model for galaxy synchrotron emission based on the post-processing of these galactic and cosmological MHD simulations, in a view to produce realistic mock observational data for the coming Square Kilometer Array instrument and its precursors (in interaction with the radio astronomy observational group at Oxford centred around Prof. Jarvis).