THE LICK AGN MONITORING PROJECT: THE MBH–σ* RELATION FOR REVERBERATION-MAPPED ACTIVE GALAXIES

By J. Woo, T. Treu, A. Barth, S. Wright, Jonelle L. Walsh, M. Bentz, P. Martini, V. Bennert, G. Canalizo, A. Filippenko and 6 more. 2010

202 citations recorded by the source corpus.

To investigate the black hole mass versus stellar velocity dispersion (MBH–σ*) relation of active galaxies, we measured the velocity dispersions of a sample of local Seyfert 1 galaxies, for which we have recently determined black hole masses using reverberation mapping. For most objects, stellar velocity dispersions were measured from high signal-to-noise ratio optical spectra centered on the Ca ii triplet region (∼8500 Å), obtained at the Keck, Palomar, and Lick Observatories. For two objects, in which the Ca ii triplet region was contaminated by nuclear emission, the measurement was based on high-quality H-band spectra obtained with the OH-Suppressing Infrared Imaging Spectrograph at the Keck-II telescope. Combining our new measurements with data from the literature, we assemble a sample of 24 active galaxies with stellar velocity dispersions and reverberation-based black hole mass measurements in the range of black hole mass 106 < MBH/M☉ < 109. We use this sample to obtain reverberation-mapping constraints on the slope and intrinsic scatter of the MBH–σ* relation of active galaxies. Assuming a constant virial coefficient f for the reverberation-mapping black hole masses, we find a slope β = 3.55 ± 0.60 and the intrinsic scatter σint = 0.43 ± 0.08 dex in the relation log(MBH/M☉) = α + β log(σ*/200 km s−1), which are consistent with those found for quiescent galaxies. We derive an updated value of the virial coefficient f by finding the value which places the reverberation masses in best agreement with the MBH–σ* relation of quiescent galaxies; using the quiescent MBH–σ* relation determined by Gültekin et al., we find log f = 0.72+0.09−0.10 with an intrinsic scatter of 0.44 ± 0.07 dex. No strong correlations between f and parameters connected to the physics of accretion (such as the Eddington ratio or line-shape measurements) are found. The uncertainty of the virial coefficient remains one of the main sources of the uncertainty in black hole mass determinations using reverberation mapping, and therefore also in single-epoch spectroscopic estimates of black hole masses in active galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/abb771f21faaaf7e552631d9c69b4e71b5225c4b

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Citations in the corpus

What drives the growth of black holes (2011, methodology): “…of MBH. Comparing MBH measurements for nearby objects using multiple techniques (including stellar and gas dynamics from spectroscopy, analysis of megamasers, and reverberation mapping), the error in virial MBH estimators is found to be ≈0.4 dex (e.g., Onken et al., 2004; Woo et al., 2010).”
Measuring the Masses of Supermassive Black Holes (2014, background): “…in quiescent and active galaxies, it becomes possible to compute a mean value for the scaling factor, which turns out to be 〈f〉 ∼ 5 (Onken et al. 2004; Woo et al. 2010; Park et al. 2012), although it is noted that Graham et al. (2011) argue that in practice this process has been oversimplified.”
REVISITING THE SCALING RELATIONS OF BLACK HOLE MASSES AND HOST GALAXY PROPERTIES (2012, methodology): “Moreover, the M• − σ relation for quiescent black holes has been used to normalize the black hole masses obtained from reverberation mapping studies of active galaxies (Onken et al. 2004; Woo et al. 2010; Park et al. 2012).”
REVERBERATION MAPPING RESULTS FOR FIVE SEYFERT 1 GALAXIES (2012, background): “…the host bulge, commonly known as the MBH–σ∗ relation (e.g., Ferrarese & Merritt 2000; Gebhardt et al. 2000, Tremaine et al. 2002; Onken et al. 2004; Woo et al. 2010), and the relation between MBH and the luminosity of the host bulge, also referred to as the MBH– LBulge relation (e.g., Kormendy…”
Supermassive Black Holes with High Accretion Rates in Active Galactic Nuclei. IX. 10 New Observations of Reverberation Mapping and Shortened Hβ Lags (2018, methodology): “…the same way, by comparing the RM objects with measurements of bulge stellar velocity dispersion (σ*) with the M•–σ* relation of inactive galaxies (e.g., Onken et al. 2004; Woo et al. 2010; Park et al. 2012; Grier et al. 2013; Ho & Kim 2014; Woo et al. 2015, see a brief review in Du et al. 2017).”
AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO MEASURING REVERBERATION LAGS IN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2010, background): “Similarly, there is still active discussion about the mean value of the scaling factor 〈f〉 (e.g., Onken et al. 2004; Labita et al. 2006; Woo et al. 2010; Graham et al. 2011) that is beyond the scope of this contribution.”
Black Hole Growth to z = 2 - I: Improved Virial Methods for Measuring M_BH and L/L_Edd (2012, methodology): “This is an average value obtained from the comparison of RM-based “virial products” and theMBH −σ∗ relation, for about 30 low redshift type-I AGN (e.g., Onken et al.2004; Woo et al. 2010; Graham et al. 2011).”
Cold Molecular Outflows in the Local Universe and Their Feedback Effect on Galaxies (2018, background): “The major contribution to this uncertainty stems from the virial coefficient f, which shows a scatter of 0.44 (Woo et al. 2010).”
REVERBERATION MAPPING MEASUREMENTS OF BLACK HOLE MASSES IN SIX LOCAL SEYFERT GALAXIES (2010, methodology): “…is secure (i.e., observational scatter minimized) and any intrinsic scatter is well characterized (see, e.g., Bentz et al. 2006, 2009a,b; Graham 2007; Gültekin et al. 2009; Woo et al. 2010, for recent efforts to improve scaling relation calibration and characterization of intrinsic scatter).”
An expanded Mbh–σ diagram, and a new calibration of active galactic nuclei masses (2010, methodology): “Our value f = 2.8+0.7−0.5 is a factor of 2 smaller than the commonly used value 5.5 ± 1.7 (Onken et al. 2004, see also Woo et al. 2010 who reported f = 5.2 ± 1.2).”
PRECISE BLACK HOLE MASSES FROM MEGAMASER DISKS: BLACK HOLE–BULGE RELATIONS AT LOW MASS (2010, methodology): “For the moment, an averagef is derived as the BH mass zeropoint that brings ensembles of low-redshift, low-mass AGNs into agreement with theMBH − σ∗ (e..g, Nelson et al. 2004; Onken et al. 2004; Greene & Ho 2006b; Shen et al. 2008; Woo et al. 2010) or theMBH − Lbulge (Bentz et al. 2009b) relations.”
THE MEGAMASER COSMOLOGY PROJECT. III. ACCURATE MASSES OF SEVEN SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES IN ACTIVE GALAXIES WITH CIRCUMNUCLEAR MEGAMASER DISKS (2010, methodology): “Here, we adopt the latest empirically determined 〈f〉 = 5.2 ± 1.3 from Woo et al. (2010).”
COMPARING SINGLE-EPOCH VIRIAL BLACK HOLE MASS ESTIMATORS FOR LUMINOUS QUASARS (2012, methodology): “The unknown geometry of the BLR is absorbed in a constant virial coefficient f , which is calibrated (e.g., Onken et al. 2004; Woo et al. 2010; Graham et al. 2011) to bring the products of RV 2/G into average agreement with those predicted from the local scaling relation between BH mass and bulge…”
STELLAR VELOCITY DISPERSION MEASUREMENTS IN HIGH-LUMINOSITY QUASAR HOSTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AGN BLACK HOLE MASS SCALE (2013, methodology): “In addition, Woo et al. (2010, 2013) and this work have demonstrated that extending the sample to cover the entire MBH range can significantly impact the measured slopes and mean virial factor, and as such we conclude the difference seen in our samples is not statistically significant due to the…”
THE LICK AGN MONITORING PROJECT: REVERBERATION MAPPING OF OPTICAL HYDROGEN AND HELIUM RECOMBINATION LINES (2010, background): “…(hereafter Paper I), followed by a full presentation of the photometric light curves (Walsh et al. 2009; hereafter Paper II) and the Hβ light curves and analysis (Bentz et al. 2009; hereafter Paper III), and a re-examination of theMBH −σ⋆ relationship for AGNs (Woo et al. 2010; hereafter Paper IV).”
Modelling reverberation mapping data – II. Dynamical modelling of the Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2008 data set (2013, methodology): “…are consistent to within the uncertainties with the values for 〈fσ 〉 measured by aligning the MBH–σ ∗ relation for active galaxies with the relation for galaxies with dynamical mass estimates (e.g. Onken et al. 2004; Woo et al. 2010, 2013; Graham et al. 2011; Park et al. 2012a; Grier et al. 2013b).”
Selection bias in dynamically measured supermassive black hole samples: its consequences and the quest for the most fundamental relation (2016, methodology): “…normalization of the intrinsicMbh-σ relation will serve as a more secure base for calibrating virial estimators of black hole mass for reverberation mapping-based scalingrelations (e.g., Onken et al. 2004; Woo et al. 2010; Graham et al. 2011; Park et al. 2012a; Grier et al. 2013; Ho & Kim 2015).”
A CATALOG OF QUASAR PROPERTIES FROM SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY DATA RELEASE 7 (2010, background): “Significant uncertainties of the virial coefficient still remain (e.g., Woo et al. 2010; Graham et al. 2011).”
THE LICK AGN MONITORING PROJECT 2011: SPECTROSCOPIC CAMPAIGN AND EMISSION-LINE LIGHT CURVES (2015, methodology): “…reverberationbased black hole masses to the localMBH −σ relation of inactive galaxies (Onken et al. 2004; Woo et al. 2010) will compensate for this offset, and consequently the the virialf -factor derived from this procedure (e.g., Onken et al. 2004; Woo et al. 2010) will be biased high by∼ 10%.”