Supermassive black hole demography: the match between the local and accreted mass functions

By Francesco Shankar, P. Salucci, G. Granato, G. Zotti, L. D. SISSA-Trieste, Italy., INAF-Padova. 2004

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We have performed a detailed analysis of the local supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass function based on both kinematic and photometric data and we have derived an accurate analytical fit in the range 10 6 M BH/M� 5 × 10 9 .W efind a total SMBH mass density of (4.2 ± 1.1) × 10 5 MMpc −3 , about 25 per cent of which is contributed by SMBHs residing in bulges of late-type galaxies. Exploiting up-to-date luminosity functions of hard X-ray and optically selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs), we have studied the accretion history of the SMBH population. If most of the accretion occurs at constant ˙ MBH/MBH ,a s in the case of Eddington-limited accretion and consistent with recent observational estimates, the local SMBH mass function is fully accounted for by mass accreted by X-ray selected AGNs, with bolometric corrections indicated by current observations and a standard mass-to-light conversion efficiency � � 10 per cent. The analysis of the accretion history highlights that the most massive BHs (associated with bright optical quasi-stellar objects) accreted their mass faster and at higher redshifts (typically at z > 1.5), while the lower-mass BHs responsible for most of the hard X-ray background have mostly grown at z < 1.5. The accreted mass function matches the local SMBH mass function if, during the main accretion phases, � � 0.09 (+0.04, −0.03) and the Eddington ratio λ = L/L Edd � 0.3 (+0.3, −0.1) (68 per cent confidence errors). The visibility time, during which AGNs are luminous enough to be detected by the currently available X-ray surveys, ranges from �0.1 Gyr for present-day BH masses M 0 � 10 6 Mto �0.3 Gyr for M 0 10 9 M� . The mass accreted during luminous phases is 25-30 per cent even if we assume extreme values of � (� � 0.3-0.4). An unlikely fine tuning of the parameters would be required to account for the local SMBH mass function accommodating a dominant contribution from 'dark' BH growth (due, for example, to BH coalescence). Ke yw ords: black hole physics - galaxies: active - galaxies: evolution - galaxies: nuclei - cosmology: miscellaneous.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3b9f54bc0bd08c3d7f950a4f886ff4fafe38d935

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Galaxy luminosities, stellar masses, sizes, velocity dispersions as a function of morphological type (2009, background): “…of velocity dispersions φ(σ ) (Sheth et al. 2003) is useful, amongst other things, to reconstruct the mass distribution of supermassive black holes (e.g. Shankar et al. 2004; Bernardi et al. 2007; Tundo et al. 2007; Shankar, Bernardi & Haiman 2009b; Shankar, Weinberg & Miralda-Escudé 2009a) and…”
The Mass Function of Active Black Holes in the Local Universe (2007, methodology): “We now investigate what fraction of BHs are active as a function of BH (spheroid) mass, by computing the inferred shape of the inactive BH mass function, using the formalism of Marconi et al. (2004; see also Yu & Tremaine 2002; Shankar et al. 2004; McLure & Dunlop 2004).”
The black hole mass–stellar velocity dispersion correlation: bulges versus pseudo-bulges (2008, background): “…(e.g. Yu & Tremaine 2002; Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Shankar et al. 2004) is consistent with the cumulative mass density of optical or X-ray selected quasar remnants expected from energy arguments (e.g. Soltan 1982; Fabian & Iwasawa 1999; Yu & Tremaine 2002; Shankar et al. 2004; Marconi et al. 2004).”
SELF-CONSISTENT MODELS OF THE AGN AND BLACK HOLE POPULATIONS: DUTY CYCLES, ACCRETION RATES, AND THE MEAN RADIATIVE EFFICIENCY (2007, background): “These correlations also make it possible to estimate the mass function of black holes in the local universe (e.g., Salucci et al. 1999; Yu & Tremaine 2002; Marconi et al. 2004; Shankar et al. 2004, S04 hereafter).”
Assisted inspirals of stellar mass black holes embedded in AGN discs: solving the ‘final au problem’ (2016, background): “The mass density of SMBHs in the local universe (z ≈ 0) is estimated to be ρ• ≈ 4 × 105M Mpc−3 (Yu & Tremaine 2002; Shankar et al. 2004).”
How do massive black holes get their gas (2009, background): “E-mail: phopkins@astro.berkeley.edu It has long been realized that bright, high-Eddington ratio accretion (i.e. a quasar) dominates the accumulation of mass in the supermassive BH population (Soltan 1982; Salucci et al. 1999; Shankar et al. 2004).”
Total Galaxy Magnitudes and Effective Radii from Petrosian Magnitudes and Radii (2005, methodology): “It also, for example, impacts on studies of the supermassive black hole mass function derived using the galaxy luminosity– black hole mass relation (e.g., McLure & Dunlop 2004, Shankar et al. 2004, and references therein).”
A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies. I. Galaxy Mergers and Quasar Activity (2007, methodology): “This yields a z ¼ 0 black hole mass density of BH(z ¼ 0) ¼ 4:81þ1:24 0:99 0:1 r h270 ; 10 5 M Mpc 3; ð1Þ consistent with estimates of BH(z ¼ 0) obtained from local bulge mass, luminosity, and velocity dispersion functions (e.g., Marconi et al. 2004; Shankar et al. 2004).”
The black hole mass – spheroid luminosity relation (2007, background): “First, they provide an easy means to predict SMBH masses in thousands of galaxies for which direct measurements of the SMBH mass is not possible (e.g. Yu & Tremaine 2002; Marconi et al. 2004; Shankar et al. 2004; Graham et al. 2007, and references therein).”
Self-regulated growth of supermassive black holes by a dual jet-heating active galactic nucleus feedback mechanism: methods, tests and implications for cosmological simulations (2011, background): “The maximum possible efficiency f = 1 predicts a slightly larger BH density than the data from Shankar et al. (2004), but is still within 3σ error.”
Stellar Remnants in Galactic Nuclei: Mass Segregation (2006, background): “…nuclei (Greene & Ho 2004; Barth et al. 2005), and most correspondingly small spheroids harbor MBHs, the nuclear MBHs in the 105–107 M range, of special interest for the present work, may reach a density of order 10 2 Mpc 3 in the local universe (Aller & Richstone 2002; Shankar et al. 2004).”
HERSCHEL-ATLAS GALAXY COUNTS AND HIGH-REDSHIFT LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS: THE FORMATION OF MASSIVE EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES (2011, result): “This implies that the optical visibility time of the QSOs is about a factor of 30 shorter than the duration of the sub-mm bright phase, in agreement with independent estimates (Shankar et al. 2004; Marconi et al. 2004; see also Lapi et al. 2006).”
A Fundamental Relation between Compact Stellar Nuclei, Supermassive Black Holes, and Their Host Galaxies (2006, background): “Furthermore, the existence of SBHs in all bright galaxies is required to reconcile the local and AGN SBH mass functions (e.g. Marconi et al. 2004; Shankar et al. 2004).”
Eccentric Black Hole Gravitational-wave Capture Sources in Galactic Nuclei: Distribution of Binary Parameters (2017, background): “…provided fitting functions for the number density distribution of massive SMBHs (Salucci et al. 1999; Aller & Richstone 2002; Marconi et al. 2004; Shankar et al. 2004; Benson et al. 2007; Graham et al. 2007; Shankar et al. 2009; Vika et al. 2009; Sijacki et al. 2015), but most of them are only…”
Direct Cosmological Simulations of the Growth of Black Holes and Galaxies (2007, background): “…time integration of the luminosity output of active galactic nuclei and quasars at X-ray and optical wavelengths (Soltan 1982; Marconi et al. 2004; Shankar et al. 2004) or, in a lessmodel-dependent manner, from an empirical determination of the bolometric quasar luminosity function (Hopkins et…”
AGN wind scaling relations and the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies (2017, background): “…and from the local bulge luminosity function suggests that SMBH growth is mostly due to accretion of matter during their active phases, and therefore that most bulge galaxies passed a phase of strong nuclear activity (Soltan 1982; Marconi et al. 2004; Shankar et al. 2004; Merloni & Heinz 2008).”
Three-dimensional radiative transfer models of clumpy tori in Seyfert galaxies (2008, background): “According to today’s knowledge, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole (106 − 1010 M⊙, e.g. Shankar et al. 2004) residing in their centres.”
Fueling Low-Level AGN Activity through Stochastic Accretion of Cold Gas (2006, background): “…from comparison of black hole mass and quasar luminosity functions (e.g., Soltan 1982; Salucci et al. 1999; Yu & Tremaine 2002; Marconi et al. 2004; Shankar et al. 2004), background synthesis models (e.g., Comastri et al. 1995; Gilli et al. 1999; Elvis et al. 2002; Ueda et al. 2003; Cao 2005), and…”
ON THE COSMIC EVOLUTION OF THE SCALING RELATIONS BETWEEN BLACK HOLES AND THEIR HOST GALAXIES: BROAD-LINE ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI IN THE zCOSMOS SURVEY (2009, background): “…to be due mainly to radiatively efficient accretion over cosmological times, taking place during “active” phases (So ltan 1982; Marconi et al. 2004; Shankar et al. 2004; Merloni & Heinz 2008), this led to the suggestion that most, if not all, galaxies went through a phase of nuclear activity in…”