The Drivers of the Decline in Supermassive Black Hole Growth at <i>z</i> &lt; 2

Abstract It is well established that cosmic supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth peaks at z ≈ 1.5–2, followed by a strong decline of ≈1–1.5 dex toward the present day, with the comoving number density of higher-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGNs) peaking at higher redshift (referred to as “AGN downsizing”). We leverage the best current measurements of the SMBH accretion distribution, based upon data from nine well-characterized extragalactic fields with a “wedding-cake” design, to investigate and quantify the drivers of the drastic decline in cosmic SMBH growth. The decline in the typical Eddington ratio ( λ Edd ) of AGNs (decreasing by ≈1.35 dex from z ≈ 1.5–2 to z ≈ 0.2) is the dominant driver for the broad decline in SMBH growth, rather than a shift of accretion activity to less-massive SMBHs. As λ Edd decreases toward lower redshift, the primary contributor to the cosmic SMBH accretion density ( ρ BHAR ) has shifted from high- λ Edd AGNs to low- λ Edd AGNs, even though the latter always dominate the comoving AGN number density at z &lt; 4. We also find that the decline in SMBH growth toward lower SMBH mass in less-massive galaxies is primarily due to the decreasing outburst luminosity rather than the duty cycle.