On the black hole–bulge mass relation in active and inactive galaxies

By R. McLure, J. Dunlop. 2001

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New black hole mass estimates are presented for a sample of 72 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) covering three decades in optical luminosity. Using a subsample of Seyfert galaxies, which have black hole mass estimates from both reverberation mapping and stellar velocity dispersions, we investigate the geometry of the AGNs' broad-line region. It is demonstrated that a model in which the orbits of the line-emitting material have a flattened geometry is favoured over randomly-orientated orbits. Using this model we investigate the M b h -L b u l g e relation for a combined 90-object sample consisting of the AGNs plus a sample of 18 nearby inactive elliptical galaxies with dynamical black hole mass measurements. It is found that, for all reasonable mass-to-light ratios, the M b h -L b u l g e relation is equivalent to a linear scaling between bulge and black hole mass. The best-fitting normalization of the M b h -M b u l g e relation is found to be M b h = 0.0012M b u l g e , in agreement with recent black hole mass studies based on stellar velocity dispersions. Furthermore, the scatter around the M b h -L b u l g e relation for the full sample is found to be significantly smaller than has been previously reported (Δlog M b h = 0.39 dex). Finally, using the nearby inactive elliptical galaxy sample alone, it is shown that the scatter in the M b h -L b u l g e relation is only 0.33 dex, comparable with that of the M b h -σ relation. These results indicate that reliable black hole mass estimates can be obtained for high redshift galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8252f9af735bcb714b55d1a6cc0fcfdcec4a28db

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Citations in the corpus

On-axis spectroscopy of the host galaxies of 20 optically luminous quasars at z ~ 0.3 (2006, methodology): “Following the MBH–Mbulge scaling relation observed in active and inactive galaxies (McLure & Dunlop 2002), the observed luminosities of the quasars and thus their central masses (>6 × 107 M ) imply a substantial bulge (MV −21.3) for all those host galaxies.”
A Log-Quadratic Relation for Predicting Supermassive Black Hole Masses from the Host Bulge Sérsic Index (2006, background): “However, recent studies that have excluded the disk-dominated spiral galaxies (e.g., McLure & Dunlop 2002) or used only the bulge luminosity from the disk galaxies after performing an accurate bulge/disk decomposition (e.g., Marconi & Hunt 2003; Erwin et al. 2004) have obtained a relationship with…”
Local supermassive black holes, relics of active galactic nuclei and the X-ray background (2003, background): “The latter correlation was thought to be the tightest but Marconi & Hunt (2003) have recently shown that all the correlations have similar intrinsic dispersion when considering only galaxies with secure BH detections (see also McLure & Dunlop 2002; Erwin, Graham, & Caon 2003).”
The luminosity dependence of the type 1 active galactic nucleus fraction (2005, background): “Feedback such as this can explain the tigtness of the correlation between the masses of the black hole and host galaxy bulge (e.g., McLure & Dunlop 2002), and it has been suggested that such a process may perform a key role in shaping the galaxy luminosity function (Benson et al. 2003).”
An expanded Mbh–σ diagram, and a new calibration of active galactic nuclei masses (2010, methodology): “L relation (McLure & Dunlop 2002; Erwin, Graham & Caon 2003; Marconi & Hunt 2003) currently has a total scatter of only 0.33 dex when (i) based on near-infrared (IR) CCD images rather than optical photographic plates, (ii) using R1/n rather than R1/4 modelling of the bulge light, (iii) after the…”
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): “Observations by Magorrian et al. (1998) first pointed out a relationship between the central BHs and their host galaxy bulge mass with a quasi-linear scaling (Laor 2001; McLure & Dunlop 2002; Marconi & Hunt 2003; Häring & Rix 2004).”
The Low End of the Supermassive Black Hole Mass Function: Constraining the Mass of a Nuclear Black Hole in NGC 205 via Stellar Kinematics (2005, background): “The measured masses obey tantalizingly tight relations with the bulge luminosity (Kormendy & Richstone 1995; McLure & Dunlop 2002; Marconi & Hunt 2003), the degree of concentration of the bulge light (Graham et al. 2001; Erwin et al. 2004), the central velocity dispersion of the stellar component…”
Supermassive black hole demography: the match between the local and accreted mass functions (2004, methodology): “L sph relation by McLure & Dunlop (2002) (see equation 1), assuming a Gaussian distribution around the mean with a dispersion log(M BH) = 0.33+0.07−0.05.”
A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies. I. Galaxy Mergers and Quasar Activity (2007, background): “These correlations take various forms, relating the black hole mass to, e.g., the mass (Magorrian et al. 1998; McLure & Dunlop 2002; Marconi & Hunt 2003; Häring& Rix 2004), velocity dispersion (Ferrarese & Merritt 2000; Gebhardt et al. 2000; Tremaine et al. 2002), and concentration or Sersic index…”
Morphologies of z ∼ 0.7 AGN host galaxies in CANDELS: no trend of merger incidence with AGN luminosity (2014, background): “…dispersion (e.g. Ferrarese & Merritt 2000; Gebhardt et al. 2000; Tremaine et al. 2002; Gültekin et al. 2009, 2011), stellar mass (e.g. Häring & Rix 2004), central light concentration (Graham et al. 2001) as well as absolute mag- nitudes in some bands (McLure & Dunlop 2002; Marconi & Hunt 2003)].”
Revised Rates of Stellar Disruption in Galactic Nuclei (2003, background): “IMPLICATIONS FOR THE DETECTION OF FLARES Black hole mass is observed to correlate tightly with bulge velocity dispersion (Ferrarese & Merritt 2000, Gebhardt et al. 2000), and with bulge mass (Merritt & Ferrarese 2001a) and luminosity (McLure & Dunlop 2002, Erwin, Graham & Caon 200 ).”
THE NON-CAUSAL ORIGIN OF THE BLACK-HOLE–GALAXY SCALING RELATIONS (2010, background): “…the mass and the velocity dispersion of their host galaxies’ bulges (Magorrian et al. 1998; Ferrarese & Merrit 2000; Gebhardt et al. 2000; Tremaine et al. 2002; McLure & Dunlop 2002; Marconi & Hunt 2003; Häring & Rix 2004; Gültekin et al. 2009; Jahnke et al. 2009; Merloni et al. 2010).”
On the correlations between galaxy properties and supermassive black hole mass (2011, methodology): “4.1.3 M• versus Mbulge The connection between the M• and Lbulge suggests a linear correlation with mass of the spheroidal component of the galaxy (Magorrian et al. 1998; McLure & Dunlop 2002; Marconi & Hunt 2003; Häring & Rix 2004).”
On the evolution of the black‐hole/spheroid mass ratio (2005, background): “It is now established at low redshift that black-hole mass and host spheroidal mass are tightly correlated in both quiescent (Magorrian et al. 1998; Gebhardt et al. 2000; Ferrarese & Merritt 2000) and active galaxies (McLure & Dunlop 2001,2002; Nelson et al. 2004).”
Probing the Coevolution of Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxies Using Gravitationally Lensed Quasar Hosts (2006, background): “…detail and measured in passbands from the optical to the near infrared (e.g. Magorrian et al. 1998; Ho 1999; Kormendy & Gebhardt 2001; Laor 2001; Merritt & Ferrarese 2001; Erwin, Graham, & Caon 2002, McLure & Dunlop 2002; Bettoni et al. 2003; Marconi & Hunt 2003, Ivanov & Alonso-Herrero 2003).”