Speaker
Description
A key question in our understanding of super-massive black holes (SMBHs) and active galactic nuclei (AGN) is how they first formed and how they subsequently impacted their hosts. This is one of the objectives of the First Light And Reionisation Epoch Simulations (FLARES), a novel suite of hydrodynamical cosmological zoom simulations. The FLARES strategy allows us to simulate much larger effective volumes than possible with traditional periodic box methods, making it ideal to study the formation and evolution of AGN in the distant Universe.
In this talk I will introduce insights from the first iteration of FLARES (FLARES-EAGLE). I will begin by exploring predictions for the physical properties of SMBHs, and their hosts. I will also discuss the impact of SMBHs on their hosts using insights gained through matched simulations entirely without AGN feedback, or other modelling changes.
Finally, I will introduce a new AGN emission model, combining disc, BLR, NLR, and torus components, incorporated into the open-source synthesizer synthetic observations pipeline. When coupled with FLARES or other simulations, this allows us to predict the rest-frame X-ray to far-IR emission, including line emission. This enables us to make direct comparison with observational surveys, avoiding the need for complex and poorly motivated completeness corrections.
