An Estimate of the Impact of Reionization on Supermassive Black Hole Growth

Phoebe R. Upton Sanderbeck, Jarrett L. Johnson, Madeline A. Marshall

Published 2023-12-13Version 1

The supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that power active galactic nuclei found at $z\geq 6$ were formed during the epoch of reionization. Because reionization is a spatially inhomogeneous process, where different regions of the Universe become reionized at different times, the physical properties of SMBH host galaxy environments will vary spatially during reionization. We construct a semi-analytic model to estimate the impact of reionization on SMBH growth due to reduced gas accretion onto dark matter halos. Using a series of merger trees, reionization models, and black hole growth models, we find that early reionization can reduce an SMBH's mass by up to [50, 70, 90] % within dark matter halos of mass [$10^{12}$, $10^{11}$, $10^{10}$] M$_{\odot}$ by $z$ = 6. Our findings also suggest that the redshift range in which black hole growth is impacted by reionization is strongly dependent on whether the Eddington accretion rate can be exceeded. If so, we find that black hole masses are significantly suppressed principally during the early phases of reionization ($z$ $\gtrsim$ 10), while they are more readily suppressed across the full redshift range if super-Eddington growth is not allowed. We find that the global average impact of reionization may be to reduce the masses of black holes residing in $\lesssim$ 10$^{11}$ M$_{\odot}$ halos by a factor of $\gtrsim$ 2. The census of SMBHs that the James Webb Space Telescope is uncovering provides a promising means by which to test these predictions.