Fundamental Planes and the Barless MBH-σ Relation for Supermassive Black Holes

By Alister W. Graham. 2008

135 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The residuals about the standard Mbh-σ relation correlate with the effective radius, absolute magnitude, and Sérsic index of the host bulge, giving rise to an apparent black hole “fundamental plane.” However, we show that the elliptical galaxies do not define such a plane. Instead, it is a handful of barred galaxies, which are shown to systematically deviate from the Mbh-σ relation by δ log Mbh ≈ − 0.5 to –1.0 dex (their σ-values are too large) and generate much of the aforementioned three-parameter correlations. Removal of the seven barred galaxies from the Tremaine et al. set of 31 galaxies gives a “barless” Mbh-σ relation with an intrinsic scatter of 0.17 dex (vs. 0.27 dex for the 31 galaxies) and a total scatter of 0.25 dex (vs. 0.34 dex for the 31 galaxies). Furthermore, removal of the barred galaxies, or all the disk galaxies, from an expanded and updated set of 40 galaxies with direct black hole mass measurements gives a consistent result, such that log (Mbh/M☉) = (8.25 ± 0.05) + (3.68 ± 0.25) log (σ/200 km s−1) . In addition, the barless σ-L relation for galaxies with direct black hole mass measurements is found to be consistent with that from the SDSS sample of early-type galaxies, and the barless Mbh-σ relation, the Mbh-n relation, and the K-band Mbh-L relation are all shown to yield SMBH masses less than 2–4 × 109 M☉.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/93cc8f6844e71acddbbeba0e6d8af986efe963c3

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Citations in the corpus

STELLAR VELOCITY DISPERSION MEASUREMENTS IN HIGH-LUMINOSITY QUASAR HOSTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AGN BLACK HOLE MASS SCALE (2013, background): “Others have found that barred galaxies lie systematically below the MBH– σ∗ relation of normal unbarred galaxies (e.g., Graham 2008a,b; Graham & Li 2009), and still others have found deviations in both the slope and intercept for galaxies hosting pseudobulges (e.g., Hu 2008; Gadotti & Kauffmann…”
On the correlations between galaxy properties and supermassive black hole mass (2011, background): “Barred and unbarred galaxies as in B09 and G09 follow the same M•–σ e relation within the errors, contrary to Graham (2008)’s findings.”
The Spitzer/IRAC view of black hole–bulge scaling relations (2010, methodology): “Supermassive black holes (BHs) are believed to dwell in almost all galaxy spheroids (hereafter bulges) as a result of past quasar activity (Soltan 1982, Marconi et al. 2004, Shankar 2009 and references therein).”
An expanded Mbh–σ diagram, and a new calibration of active galactic nuclei masses (2010, methodology): “It has already been noted by Graham (2008a) that the inactive galaxy NGC 2778 has only a weak bar, yet this nucleated galaxy is below the barless Mbh–σ relation by 0.7 dex.”
Selection bias in dynamically measured supermassive black hole samples: its consequences and the quest for the most fundamental relation (2016, background): “Graham (2008) argued that the bias discussed by Bernardi et al. (2007) was almost entirely due to lenticular and/or barred galaxies.”
Cosmological simulations of the growth of supermassive black holes and feedback from active galactic nuclei: method and tests (2009, background): “…tracks the binding energy of the stellar bulge (Marconi & Hunt 2003; Feoli & Mele 2005; Aller & Richstone 2007; Hopkins et al. 2007, 2008), although other authors argue that the appearance of a fundamental plane is actually due to biasing caused by the presence of galaxies with bars (Graham 2008).”
Quantifying the coexistence of massive black holes and dense nuclear star clusters (2009, background): “Although roughly one dozen galaxies (including NGC 3621 and excluding NGC 4026) from the sample of 76 galaxies in Graham (2008a) appear to have both a NC and a BH, it would be inappropriate to conclude that roughly 16 per cent of galaxies contain both.”
THE MBH–LSPHEROID RELATION AT HIGH AND LOW MASSES, THE QUADRATIC GROWTH OF BLACK HOLES, AND INTERMEDIATE-MASS BLACK HOLE CANDIDATES (2012, methodology): “…Mbh–Lspheroid relation 3 We have continued to build on past catalogs of reliable supermassive black hole masses obtained from direct maser, stellar or gas kinematic measurements (e.g. Ferrarese & Ford (2005); Hu (2008); Graham (2008b); Graham et al. 2011) by adding 16 galaxies from the literature.”
What broad emission lines tell us about how active galactic nuclei work (2009, background): “…the AGNM• – logLhost relationships are smaller than the±0.38 dex scatter Gultekin et al. (2009) and others find whenM• is determined by stellar dynamical methods, but they are still greater than the±0.17 dex scatter in theM• –σ∗ relationship for pure bulge (i.e., barless) galaxies (Graham, 2008).”
THE SINFONI BLACK HOLE SURVEY: THE BLACK HOLE FUNDAMENTAL PLANE REVISITED AND THE PATHS OF (CO)EVOLUTION OF SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES AND BULGES (2016, background): “Graham (2008) reports that the BH FP is possibly driven by the barred galaxies in the sample.”
The evolution of massive black holes and their spins in their galactic hosts (2012, background): “…the black-hole mass and the line-of-sight velocity dispersionσ of the bulge (Ferrarese & Merritt 2000; Gebhardt et al. 2000; Gültekin et al. 2009; Graham 2008; Graham et al. 2011;Hu 2008), and at the relation between the MBH mass and the bulge c© 0000 RAS, MNRAS000, 000–000 16 E. Barausse…”