On the Relationship between Radio Emission and Black Hole Mass in Galactic Nuclei

By Luis C. Ho. 2001

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We use a comprehensive database of black hole masses (MBH) and nuclear luminosities to investigate the relationship between radio emission and MBH. Our sample covers a wide range of nuclear activity, from nearby inactive nuclei to classical Seyfert 1 nuclei and luminous quasars. Contrary to some previous studies, we find that the radio continuum power, either integrated for the entire galaxy or isolated for the core, correlates poorly with MBH. The degree of nuclear radio loudness, parameterized by the radio-to-optical luminosity ratio R, also shows no clear dependence on MBH. Radio-loud nuclei exist in galaxies with a wide range of MBH, from ~106 to a few times 109 M☉, and in a variety of hosts, from disk-dominated spiral to giant elliptical galaxies. We demonstrate that R is strongly inversely correlated with L/LE, the ratio of nuclear luminosity to the Eddington luminosity, and hence with the mass accretion rate. Most or all of the weakly active nuclei in nearby galaxies are radio-loud, highly sub-Eddington systems that are plausibly experiencing advection-dominated accretion.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/860ae1249bb3e5fa77e74190e7bf08bb95b8c563

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Citations in the corpus

Hot Accretion Flows Around Black Holes (2014, background): “…has accumulated in recent years with the recognition that essentially all low-luminosity AGNs are radio loud (Nagar et al. 2000, Falcke et al. 2000, Ho 2002) and the parallel discovery that virtually every BHB in the hard state has radio emission (Corbel et al. 2000; Fender 2001, 2006; Fender et…”
Active Galactic Nucleus Black Hole Masses and Bolometric Luminosities (2002, result): “10, top panel) since previous reports have suggested that there is a correlation between the two (McLure et al. 1999; Lacy et al. 2001), although more recent investigations have not found such a correlation (Ho 2002; Oshlack et al 2002).”
On the X-ray, optical emission line and black hole mass properties of local Seyfert galaxies ! (2006, background): “…kinematics; S: stellar kinematics; R: reverberation mapping; Iσ: inferred from the mass-velocity dispersion correlation; Col. (12): MBH references: (1) Ho (2002); (2) Woo & Urry (2002); (3) Merloni et al. (2003); (4) Kaspi et al. (2000); (5) Pellegrini (2005); (6) Merritt & Ferrarese (2001); (7)…”
Radiative efficiency, variability and Bondi accretion on to massive black holes: the transition from radio AGN to quasars in brightest cluster galaxies (2012, background): “Ho 2002; Terashima & Wilson 2003; Panessa et al. 2007).”
The AGN-obscuring Torus: The End of the “Doughnut” Paradigm? (2006, unknown): “In contrast, Ho (2002) ﬁnds that the radio loudness of AGNs is inversely correlated with the mass accretion rate (see also Greene et al. 2006).”
A synthesis model for AGN evolution: supermassive black holes growth and feedback modes (2008, background): “Detailed multi-wavelength observations of nearby galaxies have revealed a clear tendency for lower luminosity AGN to be more radio loud as the Eddington-scaled accretion rate decreases (see Ho 2002, and references therein; Nagar, Falcke and Wilson 2005).”
CAIXA: a catalogue of AGN in the XMM-Newton archive - II. Multiwavelength correlations (2009, background): “Ho (2002) found an highly significant anti-correlation between these two parameters, suggesting that weakly active nuclei are powered by advection-dominated accretion flows (ADAFs), which give rise to radio-loud spectra.”
Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei: Past, Present and Future Research (2004, background): “These studies find either a looser correlation (Laor 2000; Lacy et al. 2001; Wu & Han 2001) or no correlation at all (Ho 2002; Oshlack et al. 2002; Woo & Urry 2002).”
A Systematic Analysis of Fe II Emission in Quasars: Evidence for Inflow to the Central Black Hole (2008, background): “This pattern is reminiscent of that seen by Constantin & Shields (2003), who found that the UV-optical continuum of NLS1s, which have high Lbol/LEdd and strong Fe ii, is redder than that of regular AGNs.”
Biases in Virial Black Hole Masses: An SDSS Perspective (2007, result): “Radio-loud quasars in our sample have smaller Eddington ratios than radio-undetected quasars on average, as has been found in previous analyses (e.g., Ho 2002).”
Radio sources in low-luminosity active galactic nuclei IV. Radio luminosity function, importance of jet power, and radio properties of the complete Palomar sample (2005, background): “For example, Franceschini et al. (1998) claimed a correlation with a much steeper slope based on a small number of objects, while Ho (2002) and Woo & Urry (2002) found no correlation for larger samples of AGNs and LLAGNs.”
Nuclear Activity in Nearby Galaxies (2008, methodology): “To the extent that radio power shows a mild dependence on bulge strength or BH mass (Nagar, Falcke & Wilson 2005; see Ho 2002a), the detection rates, strictly speaking, should be renormalized to account for the differences in morphological types among the three classes.”
Radio Loudness of Active Galactic Nuclei: Observational Facts and Theoretical Implications (2006, methodology): “Therefore, to minimize the related uncertainties, for sources overlapped by samples from Ho & Peng (2001) and Ho (2002), we adopted nuclear luminosities obtained in Ho& Peng from the direct optical measurements and corrected by subtracting the starlight.”
A Fundamental plane of black hole activity (2003, background): “Moreover, by studying a sample of galactic nuclei with measured black hole masses, Ho (2002) found clear evidence of radio loudness being anti-correlated with someestimator of the dimensionless accretion rate.”
The Relation between Quasar and Merging Galaxy Luminosity Functions and the Merger-driven Star Formation History of the Universe (2006, background): “…further in Hopkins et al. (2005b, 2006c) in the context of the observed lack of correlation between quasar luminosity and black hole mass (e.g., Ho 2002; Heckman et al. 2004; Hao et al. 2005b) but similarly explains the observed lack of a correlation between nuclear and host galaxy optical…”
Measuring the kinetic power of active galactic nuclei in the radio mode (2007, background): “While the observational evidence for low radiative efficiency in many nearby galactic nuclei has grown significantly in recent years (see e.g. Ho 2002; MHD03; Pellegrini 2005; Chiaberge et al. 2005) there remains substantial uncertainty on the true dynamical state of such flows.”