What's Missing in AGN Feedback? Lessons learnt from Magneticum, IllustrisTNG and Simba

D. T. Mazengo; P. Popesso; I. Marini; L. M. Valenzuela; N. de Isídio; V. Toptun; Mirjana Pović; Petri Väisänen; J. M. Sunzu; R. -S. Remus; V. Biffi; K. Dolag; R. Davé; A. Fraser-McKelvie; A. Dev; S. Vladutescu-Zopp; A. Merloni; G. Ponti; C. Aydar; S. Shreeram; L. A. Kahinga; J. O. Chibueze; P. Privatus

arXiv · 2607.21140

What's Missing in AGN Feedback? Lessons learnt from Magneticum, IllustrisTNG and Simba

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Abstract

Accurately balancing gas reservoirs, star formation, and feedback across cosmic time remains a central challenge for galaxy formation models in modern hydrodynamical simulations. While different feedback prescriptions reproduce selected local galaxy properties with varying success, the most pronounced discrepancies emerge in predictions for the hot gas content of dark matter halos. We examine three state-of-the-art cosmological simulations: Magneticum, IllustrisTNG, and SIMBA, which struggle to simultaneously reproduce observed galaxy and halo gas properties in the local Universe. We confront their predictions with spatially resolved galaxy data from MaNGA and recent constraints on the hot gas mass fraction-halo mass (fgas-Mh) relation from eROSITA and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) measurements. Reproducing the observed fgas-Mh relation requires strong active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback. However, such feedback often leads to excessive quenching in simulated galaxy populations. Magneticum and SIMBA match the observed gas fraction relation but predict an overabundance of quenched galaxies. In contrast, IllustrisTNG implements weaker AGN feedback, yielding more realistic star-forming fractions but systematically overpredicting hot gas masses in massive groups and poor clusters. Overall, these tensions indicate current feedback models remain incomplete, not only in the total energy injected but also in the timing, location, and coupling of this energy to the surrounding gas. Our results therefore highlight the need to revisit subgrid feedback prescriptions and develop more self-consistent models capable of simultaneously regulating galaxy growth and the thermodynamic properties of halo gas. Motivated by this discrepancy, a companion study will explore whether the feedback strengths required to match halo gas constraints inevitably lead to overquenching and distorted galaxy demographics.

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D. T. Mazengo, P. Popesso, I. Marini, L. M. Valenzuela, N. de Isídio, V. Toptun, Mirjana Pović, Petri Väisänen, J. M. Sunzu, R. -S. Remus, V. Biffi, K. Dolag, R. Davé, A. Fraser-McKelvie, A. Dev, S. Vladutescu-Zopp, A. Merloni, G. Ponti, C. Aydar, S. Shreeram, L. A. Kahinga, J. O. Chibueze, P. Privatus. 2026-07-23. What's Missing in AGN Feedback? Lessons learnt from Magneticum, IllustrisTNG and Simba. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.21140

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