GALAXY ZOO: THE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT CO-EVOLUTION OF SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES AND THEIR EARLY- AND LATE-TYPE HOST GALAXIES

By Kevin Schawinski, C. Urry, S. Virani, Paolo De Coppi, Steven Bamford, E. Treister, Chris J. Lintott, M. Sarzi, William Keel, S. Kaviraj and 11 more. 2010

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We use data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and visual classifications of morphology from the Galaxy Zoo project to study black hole growth in the nearby universe (z < 0.05) and to break down the active galactic nucleus (AGN) host galaxy population by color, stellar mass, and morphology. We find that the black hole growth at luminosities >1040 erg s−1 in early- and late-type galaxies is fundamentally different. AGN host galaxies as a population have a broad range of stellar masses (1010–1011 M☉), reside in the green valley of the color–mass diagram and their central black holes have median masses around 106.5 M☉. However, by comparing early- and late-type AGN host galaxies to their non-active counterparts, we find several key differences: in early-type galaxies, it is preferentially the galaxies with the least massive black holes that are growing, while in late-type galaxies, it is preferentially the most massive black holes that are growing. The duty cycle of AGNs in early-type galaxies is strongly peaked in the green valley below the low-mass end (1010 M☉) of the red sequence at stellar masses where there is a steady supply of blue cloud progenitors. The duty cycle of AGNs in late-type galaxies on the other hand peaks in massive (1011 M☉) green and red late-types which generally do not have a corresponding blue cloud population of similar mass. At high-Eddington ratios (L/LEdd>0.1), the only population with a substantial fraction of AGNs are the low-mass green valley early-type galaxies. Finally, the Milky Way likely resides in the “sweet spot” on the color–mass diagram where the AGN duty cycle of late-type galaxies is highest. We discuss the implications of these results for our understanding of the role of AGNs in the evolution of galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/102b29b4c30800802cc7e6dc096162b8942f360d

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Citations in the corpus

Galaxy Zoo: Passive Red Spirals . (2009, background): “Schawinski et al. (2010) study the masking of AGN (Seyfert) emission in star forming galaxies and show that for AGN [OIII] luminosities below 1039 erg s−1 most galaxies with star formation present will not be classified as AGN, and that only above 1040 erg s−1 will the sample of AGN identified by…”
A CORRELATION BETWEEN STAR FORMATION RATE AND AVERAGE BLACK HOLE ACCRETION IN STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2013, background): “Recent evidence for rapid AGN variability over a large dynamic range in accretion rate comes from the discovery of giant ionized clouds around galaxies with little or no current AGN activity (Schawinski et al. 2010), indicating a drop in AGN luminosity by> 105 in < 105 years.”
A comprehensive classification of galaxies in the SDSS: How to tell true from fake AGN? (2010, background): “This idea is recently gaining support (Schawinski et al. 2010; Masters et al. 2010; Kaviraj 2010), especially with the detailed study of nearby galaxies (Sarzi et al. 2010; Annibali et al. 2010; Eracleous, Hwang, & Flohic 2010).”
Galaxy Zoo 1: data release of morphological classifications for nearly 900 000 galaxies (2010, methodology): “Schawinski et al. (2010) use Galaxy Zoo classifications to distinguish the host galaxies of AGN, finding that in the present day Universe activity is preferentially found in low mass early-types and high mass l te- types.”
SDSS IV MaNGA – spatially resolved diagnostic diagrams: a proof that many galaxies are LIERs (2016, background): “The [SII] BPT diagram is not affected by the N/O abundance ratio, and provides a cleaner separation within the ‘right-hand sequence’ between Sy and LIERs (Kewley et al. 2006; Schawinski et al. 2010).”
Active galactic nuclei flicker: an observational estimate of the duration of black hole growth phases of ∼105 yr (2015, background): “…physics in X-ray binaries and AGN is similar, except that AGN black holes are more massive and therefore change on signiﬁcantly longer time scale has been suggested a number of times (e.g. Maccarone et al. 2003; Falcke et al. 2004; Körding et al. 2006; McHardy et al. 2006; Schawinski et al. 2010a).”
COLOR–MAGNITUDE RELATIONS OF ACTIVE AND NON-ACTIVE GALAXIES IN THE CHANDRA DEEP FIELDS: HIGH-REDSHIFT CONSTRAINTS AND STELLAR-MASS SELECTION EFFECTS (2010, background): “…with either Sample B or Sample D that there is apparent AGN clustering in the CMDs; the latter result was also obtained by previous CMD studies (e.g., Nandra et al. 2007; Rovilos & Georgantopoulos 2007; Westoby et al. 2007; Silverman et al. 2008b; Hickox et al. 2009; Schawinski et al. 2010).”
THE NATURE OF LINER-LIKE EMISSION IN RED GALAXIES (2011, background): “Although Sarzi et al. (2010) is very careful in not drawing conclusions based on this fact alone, such extended emission has been quoted by many others (e.g. Kaviraj 2010; Masters et al. 2010; Schawinski et al. 2010) as evidence for stellar photoionization.”
THE BULK OF THE BLACK HOLE GROWTH SINCE z ∼ 1 OCCURS IN A SECULAR UNIVERSE: NO MAJOR MERGER–AGN CONNECTION (2010, background): “Even though obscured AGN can still be detected through their hard X-ray emission (Hopkins et al. 6 For example, see Schawinski et al. (2010) who make an extensive case of the time lag scenario.”
The green valley is a red herring: Galaxy Zoo reveals two evolutionary pathways towards quenching of star formation in early-and late-type galaxies (2014, methodology): “In fact, the present work provides context for interpreting our earlier Galaxy Zoo AGN host galaxy study (Schawinski et al. 2010a).”
HST WFC3/IR OBSERVATIONS OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS HOST GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2: SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES GROW IN DISK GALAXIES (2010, methodology): “…feature black hole accretion in a specific time window after a rapidly suppressed burst of star formation that was induced by a merger event (Schawinski et al. 2007, 2010a,b; Wild et al. 2007; Constantin et al. 2008), while black hole growth in latetype galaxies, which dominates active…”
The mean star formation rate of X-ray selected active galaxies and its evolution from z~2.5: results from PEP-Herschel (2012, background): “Seyfert host galaxies tend to be massive disks with substantial spheroids, though some fraction are also in more elliptical hosts (Kauffmann et al. 2003, 2007; Schawinski et al. 2010).”