A Fundamental plane of black hole activity

By A. Merloni, S. Heinz, T. Di Matteo. 2003

972 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We examine the disc-jet connection in stellar mass and supermassive black holes by investigating the properties of their compact emission in the X-ray and radio bands. We compile a sample of ∼100 active galactic nuclei with measured masses, 5-GHz core emission, and 2-10 keV luminosities, together with eight galactic black holes with a total of ∼50 simultaneous observations in the radio and X-ray bands. Using this sample, we study the correlations between the radio (L R ) and the X-ray (L X ) luminosity and the black hole mass (M). We find that the radio luminosity is correlated with both M and L X , at a highly significant level. In particular, we show that the sources define a 'Fundamental Plane' in the three-dimensional (log L R , log L X , log M) space, given by log L R = (0.60 + 0 . 1 1 -0.11) log L X + (0.78 + 0 . 1 1 -0.09) log M + 7.33 + 4 . 0 5 -4.07, with a substantial scatter of σ R = 0.88. We compare our results to the theoretical relations between radio flux, black hole mass, and accretion rate derived by Heinz & Sunyaev. Such relations depend only on the assumed accretion model and on the observed radio spectral index. Therefore, we are able to show that the X-ray emission from black holes accreting at less than a few per cent of the Eddington rate is unlikely to be produced by radiatively efficient accretion, and is marginally consistent with optically thin synchrotron emission from the jet. On the other hand, models for radiatively inefficient accretion flows seem to agree well with the data.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/36d0a1fee7908e95c6c9b0c7ee2ec81012bdf7b1

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Citations in the corpus

The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/Virgo GW170817. VII. Properties of the Host Galaxy and Constraints on the Merger Timescale (2017, background): “For this black hole mass, the ratio of the X-ray to radio luminosity is consistent with the fundamental plane of black hole activity (Merloni et al. 2003).”
The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe (2014, background): “Indeed these AGN and low/hard X-ray binaries fall on the same fundamental plane of black hole accretion: a relationship between the radio luminosity, X-ray luminosity and black-hole mass of black holes (Merloni et al. 2003, Falcke et al. 2004).”
THE FUNDAMENTAL PLANE OF ACCRETION ONTO BLACK HOLES WITH DYNAMICAL MASSES (2009, methodology): “This correlation was quickly extended to also include super-massive black holes in AGN, resulting in the discovery of a “fundamental plane” of black hole activity (Merloni et al. 2003; Falcke et al. 2004, also seeMerloni et al. 2006).”
A global spectral study of black hole X-ray binaries (2009, background): “Shortly thereafter thisrelation was extended to AGN by Merloni et al. (2003); Falcke et al. (2004)independently.”
DWARF GALAXIES WITH OPTICAL SIGNATURES OF ACTIVE MASSIVE BLACK HOLES (2013, methodology): “Reines et al. (2011) estimate a BH mass of log (MBH/M ) = 6.3 ± 1.1 using the radio–X-ray–MBH fundamental plane (Merloni et al. 2003), and Kormendy & Ho (2013) estimate that Henize 2-10 has a stellar mass of M?”
PS16dtm: A Tidal Disruption Event in a Narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxy (2017, result): “Taking into account the inferred black hole mass, this ratio is also consistent with the “fundamental plane” of black hole activity (e.g., Merloni et al. 2003).”
The Murmur of the Sleeping Black Hole: Detection of Nuclear Ultraviolet Variability in LINER Galaxies (2005, positive): “…should be connected to emission at other wavelengths and to the assumed black hole mass by a relation analogous to the radio/X-ray correlation seen in low-accretion rate black holes (Merloni et al. 2003; Falcke et al. 2004) We intend to carry out such comparisons to models in a future paper.”
The Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102 as Seen on Milliarcsecond Angular Scales (2017, background): “Other possible associations, like a single X-ray binary (such as Cyg X-3; Merloni et al. 2003; Reines et al. 2011) or an ultraluminous X-ray nebula (such as S 26 and/or IC 342 X-1; Soria et al. 2010; Cseh et al. 2012), do not fit to the measured flux density of the persistent radio emission and/or t”
MCG–6-30-15: long time-scale X-ray variability, black hole mass and active galactic nuclei high states (2005, background): “AGN with low state X-ray PSDs are likely to be found amongst those AGN which have relatively more luminous radio emission (cf Merloni et al. 2003).”
Black Hole Spin and Galactic Morphology (2007, background): “This inspired Ulvestad & Ho (2001), Merloni et al. (2003), Nipoti et al. (2005), and Körding et al. (2006) to postulate the existence of a similar intermittency of jet production in quasars and formulate an “accretion paradigm” according to which the radio-loudness is entirely related to the…”
A ∼50,000 M⊙ SOLAR MASS BLACK HOLE IN THE NUCLEUS OF RGG 118 (2015, background): “…opportunity to measure BH masses in systems beyond the Local Group; for AGN in dwarf galaxies, we can estimate masses based on broad emission lines if present (e.g. Greene & Ho 2005; Reines et al. 2013), or from the fundamental plane of BH activity (Merloni et al. 2003; Reines et al. 2011, 2014).”
Refining the fundamental plane of accreting black holes (2006, background): “…picture has now been established for some time, it has recently been tested on a detailed empirical level by correlations in the radio and X-ray band which have lead to the so-called fundamental plane of black hole activity (Merloni et al. 2003 hereafter MHDM, and Falcke et al. 2004 hereafter FKM).”