Early Growth and Efficient Accretion of Massive Black Holes at High Redshift

By M. Vestergaard. 2003

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Black hole masses of the highest redshift quasars (4 ≲ z ≲ 6) are estimated using a previously presented scaling relationship, derived from reverberation mapping of nearby quasars, and compared with quasars at lower redshift. It is shown that the central black holes in luminous z ≳ 4 quasars are very massive (≳109 M☉). It is argued that the mass estimates of the high-redshift quasars are not subject to larger uncertainties than those for nearby quasars. Specifically, the large masses are not overestimates, and the lack of similarly large black hole masses in the nearby universe does not rule out their existence at high redshift. However, active galactic nucleus host galaxies do not typically appear fully formed and/or evolved at these early epochs. This supports scenarios in which black holes build up mass very fast in a radiatively inefficient (or obscured) phase relative to the stars in their galaxies. In addition, upper envelopes of MBH ≈ 1010 M☉ and Lbol ≈ 1048 ergs s-1 are observed at all redshifts.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

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A SURVEY OF z ∼ 6 QUASARS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY DEEP STRIPE. I. A FLUX-LIMITED SAMPLE AT zAB < 21 (2007, background): “…Germany 10 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802 the Eddington limit (e.g. Barth et al. 2003; Vestergaard 2004; Jiang et al. 2006a; Kurk et al. 2007), revealing the rapid growth of central BHs at high redshift.”
Fueling Low-Level AGN Activity through Stochastic Accretion of Cold Gas (2006, background): “…(e.g., Comastri et al. 1995; Gilli et al. 1999; Elvis et al. 2002; Ueda et al. 2003; Cao 2005), and observations of the accretion rate distribution (Vestergaard 2004; Heckman et al. 2004; McLure & Dunlop 2004; Hopkins et al. 2005e) that these modes do not dominate black hole growth or cosmological…”
The Masses of Nuclear Black Holes in Luminous Elliptical Galaxies and Implications for the Space Density of the Most Massive Black Holes (2006, background): “Bechtold et al. (2003) and Vestergaard (2004) also argue that some QSOs have BHs approaching this mass.”
A Reverberation-based Mass for the Central Black Hole in NGC 4151 (2006, background): “Reverberation results also provide the fundamental calibration for mass estimates based on radius–luminosity scaling relationships (Wandel et al. 1999; Vestergaard 2002, 2004; McLure & Jarvis 2002; Kollmeier et al. 2006; Vestergaard & Peterson 2006).”
CONSTRAINTS ON BLACK HOLE GROWTH, QUASAR LIFETIMES, AND EDDINGTON RATIO DISTRIBUTIONS FROM THE SDSS BROAD-LINE QUASAR BLACK HOLE MASS FUNCTION (2010, methodology): “McLure & Dunlop 2004; Vestergaard 2004; Kollmeier et al. 2006; Vestergaard & Osmer 2009).”
Supermassive black hole demography: the match between the local and accreted mass functions (2004, methodology): “For instance, McLure & Dunlop (2004) find k Bbol ∼ 8, and Vestergaard (2004) finds k Bbol = 9.7 for higher-redshift QSOs.”
The Effect of Radiation Pressure on Virial Black Hole Mass Estimates and the Case of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies (2008, methodology): “…are commonly used to estimate BH masses in large sample of galaxies from zero to high redshifts (e.g. Willott et al. 2003; McLure & Dunlop 2004; Vestergaard 2004; Jiang et al. 2007) and are deemed accurate only from a statistical point of view on large samples of objects since a single…”
Biases in Virial Black Hole Masses: An SDSS Perspective (2007, methodology): “There is a clear upper limit∼ 1010 M⊙ for all quasars, as other studies have found (e.g., McLure & Dunlop 2004; Vestergaard 2004).”
Probing the Coevolution of Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxies Using Gravitationally Lensed Quasar Hosts (2006, background): “Netzer (2003), Vestergaard (2004) and Baskin & Laor (2005) discuss why they should be applicable to luminous quasars and the potential caveats.”
Black Hole Masses and Eddington Ratios at 0.3 < z < 4 (2005, methodology): “The Warner et al. (2004) and Vestergaard (2004) studies of heterogeneous samples of AGNs are most akin to what we have presented here.”
SELF-CONSISTENT MODELS OF THE AGN AND BLACK HOLE POPULATIONS: DUTY CYCLES, ACCRETION RATES, AND THE MEAN RADIATIVE EFFICIENCY (2007, background): “Some studies also show evidence for mass-dependence of the typical Eddington ratio (e.g., Heckmann et al. 2004; Vestergaard 2004; McLure & Dunlop 2004; Constantin & Vogeley 2006; Dasyra et al. 2007; Shen et al. 2007b), though systematic uncertainties in the reverberation mapping techniques and…”
Direct Cosmological Simulations of the Growth of Black Holes and Galaxies (2007, background): “…picture of the evolution of the supermassive black hole population according to which massive BHs (MBH k 109 M ) are assembled early and are then likely undergoing comparatively passive evolution in the centers of large spheroids (Shields et al. 2003; Vestergaard 2004; Adelberger & Steidel 2005).”
Formation of z~6 Quasars from Hierarchical Galaxy Mergers (2006, background): “Studies of BH accretion (e.g., Vestergaard 2004, 2006; Kollmeier et al. 2006) show that the Eddington ratio has a wide range of 0.01Y1.”
The Mass Function of Active Black Holes in the Local Universe (2007, methodology): “…Ferrarese et al. 2001; Onken et al. 2004; Nelson et al. 2004; Greene & Ho 2006b); these techniques have been used to investigate BH mass functions at intermediate to high redshift (e.g., Vestergaard 2004; McLure & Dunlop 2004; Kollmeier et al. 2006), but not in a systematic way for nearby systems.”
MASS FUNCTIONS OF THE ACTIVE BLACK HOLES IN DISTANT QUASARS FROM THE LARGE BRIGHT QUASAR SURVEY, THE BRIGHT QUASAR SURVEY, AND THE COLOR-SELECTED SAMPLE OF THE SDSS FALL EQUATORIAL STRIPE (2009, methodology): “Of these, mass scaling relationships have some of the lowest associated uncertainties (e.g., Vestergaard 2004b) which can be further improved upon in the future (e.g., Marconi et al. 2008).”
The Star-forming Torus and Stellar Dynamical Black Hole Mass in the Seyfert 1 Nucleus of NGC 3227 (2006, methodology): “The masses of black holes in nearby AGN are most commonly estimated by reverberation mapping (Onken et al. 2004), a technique that can be extended to higher redshift via additional scaling relations (Kaspi et al. 2000, 2005; Vestergaard 2002, 2004).”
Cosmic Evolution of Mass Accretion Rate and Metallicity in Active Galactic Nuclei (2006, methodology): “…in numerous papers to obtain a “single epoch” estimate of the black hole (BH) mass by combining the derived BLR size with a measure of the gas velocity obtained from emission line widths, e.g. FWHM(Hβ ) (e.g. Netzer 2003; Vestergaard 2004; Shemmer et al. 2004, hereafter S04; Baskin and Laor 2005).”
Accretion-driven evolution of black holes: Eddington ratios, duty cycles and active galaxy fractions (2011, background): “…of quasars and active galaxies have found evidence for time evolution of λc, and in some cases for mass-dependence (e.g., McLure & Dunlop 2004; Vestergaard 2004; Heckman et al. 2005; Ballo et al. 2007; Babić et al. 2007; Bundy et al. 2008; Rovilos & Georgantopoulos 2007; Cao & Li 2008;…”
Central Masses and Broad-Line Region Sizes of Active Galactic Nuclei. II. A Homogeneous Analysis of a Large Reverberation-Mapping Database (2004, background): “…that can be used to anchor secondary methods of mass measurement, thus making it possible to provide estimates of the masses of large samples of quasars, including even very distant quasars, based on relatively simple spectral measurements (e.g., Vestergaard 2002, 2004; McLure & Jarvis 2002).”