SPS Seminar - Radio galaxies in cosmological simulations

 When:  Thursday 8 June at 14.00

Where:  Robert Hooke/Teams Online

Speaker:  Nicole Thomas – University of Durham

Hosted by: Hugh Dickinson

Abstract:

Radio galaxies are a population of active galactic nuclei (AGN) identified by the presence of relativistic jets observed at radio wavelengths. These radio galaxies play a key role in the quenching of massive galaxies, however the physical processes describing their accretion and feedback mechanisms are still poorly defined.
It is well-known that AGN feedback is essential for cosmological simulations to reproduce properties of the observed galaxy population however, various simulations implement the growth and feedback from supermassive black holes in very different ways and yet are still able to produce similar results. So how can we reconcile our accretion and feedback models with the observed population of AGN?
In this talk I will discuss the methods we have used to produce and predict the global properties of a population of radio galaxies with the SIMBA suite of cosmological simulations. I will discuss the successes and shortcomings of this study and describe ongoing work to constrain the accretion and feedback mechanisms of radio galaxies using a combination of cosmological simulations, semi-analytic models, and next generation radio surveys in hopes of bridging the gap between theory and observations.