Quasars, their host galaxies and their central black holes

By J. Dunlop, R. McLure, M. Kukula, S. Baum, C. O’Dea, D. Hughes. 2001

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We present the final results from our deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging study of the host galaxies of radio-quiet quasars (RQQs), radio-loud quasars (RLQs) and radio galaxies (RGs). We describe and analyse new Wide Field & Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) R-band observations for 14 objects, which when combined with the first tranche of HST imaging reported in McLure et al., provide a complete and consistent set of deep, red, line-free images for statistically matched samples of 13 RQQs, 10 RLQs and 10 RGs in the redshift band 0.1 < z < 0.25. We also report the results of new deep VLA imaging that has yielded a 5-GHz detection of all but one of the 33 active galactic nuclei (AGN) in our sample. Careful modelling of our images, aided by a high dynamic-range point spread function, has allowed us to determine accurately the morphology, luminosity, scalelength and axial ratio of every host galaxy in our sample. Armed with this information we have undertaken a detailed comparison of the properties of the hosts of these three types of powerful AGN, both internally and with the galaxy population in general. We find that spheroidal hosts become more prevalent with increasing nuclear luminosity such that, for nuclear luminosities MV < −23.5, the hosts of both radio-loud and radio-quiet AGN are virtually all massive ellipticals. Moreover, we demonstrate that the basic properties of these hosts are indistinguishable from those of quiescent, evolved, low-redshift ellipticals of comparable mass. This result rules out the possibility that radio-loudness is determined by host-galaxy morphology, and also sets severe constraints on evolutionary schemes that attempt to link low-z ultraluminous infrared galaxies with RQQs. Instead, we show that our results are as expected given the relationship between black hole and spheroid mass established for nearby galaxies, and apply this relation to estimate the mass of the black hole in each object. The results agree remarkably well with completely independent estimates based on nuclear emission-line widths; all the quasars in our sample have Mbh > 5 × 108 M⊙, while the radio-loud objects are confined to Mbh > 109 M⊙. This apparent mass-threshold difference, which provides a natural explanation for why RQQs outnumber RLQs by a factor of 10, appears to reflect the existence of a minimum and a maximum level of black hole radio output, which is a strong function of black hole mass (∝M2−2.5bh). Finally, we use our results to estimate the fraction of massive spheroids/black holes that produce quasar-level activity. This fraction is ≃0.1 per cent at the present day, rising to >10 per cent at z≃ 2–3.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b7c9df3be33d8ff5344cf11a59905e3b676a2297

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Citations in the corpus

Evidence for Merger Remnants in Early-Type Host Galaxies of Low-Redshift QSOs (2008, background): “…have elicited claims that tidal interactions in QSO host galaxies are the exception rather than the rule, and that even in those cases in which there are clear signs of interaction, the interactions are not necessarily related to the nuclear activity (e.g., Dunlop et al. 2003, hereafter D03).”
The VISTA deep extragalactic observations (VIDEO) survey (2012, background): “Although the central quasar is obscured in these objects, VIDEO will have the sensitivity to detect the host galaxies of such sources up to z ∼ 5 assuming that their host galaxies are ∼2–3 L (e.g. Jarvis et al. 2001; Dunlop et al. 2003; Willott et al. 2003; Herbert et al. 2011).”
PRIMUS: THE DEPENDENCE OF AGN ACCRETION ON HOST STELLAR MASS AND COLOR (2011, background): “The fraction of galaxies that host radio-loud AGNs is even more strongly dependent on stellar mass, rising rapidly from < 0.01% at M∗≈ 1010 M⊙ to > 30% at M∗& 5 × 1011M⊙(Best et al. 2005); it has long been established that radio-loud AGNs are primarily found in massive, elliptical galaxies (e.g., Ma”
The faint radio sky: radio astronomy becomes mainstream (2016, background): “−24 or Lbol & 1045 erg s−1) at low redshifts are mostly hosted by bulge-dominated galaxies (e.g., Dunlop et al., 2003; Hopkins & Hernquist, 2009), while lower luminosity sources cover the full range of morphologies.”
The quasar relation through cosmic time – II. Evidence for evolution from z = 3 to the present age (2009, background): “In particular, the studies of Bahcall et al. (1997); Hamilton et al. (2002); Dunlop et al. (2003) significantly overlap onto the recent re-analysis presented by Kim et al. (2008a,b).”
A Physical Model for the Coevolution of QSOs and Their Spheroidal Hosts (2003, background): “Evidences supporting this view include: the discovery that Massive Dark Objects (MDOs), with masses in the range ∼ 106–3 × 109 M⊙ and a mass function matching that of baryons accreted onto black holes during the quasar activity (Salucci et al. 1999), are present in essentially all local galaxies wit”
Evidence for Quasar Activity Triggered by Galaxy Mergers in HST Observations of Dust-reddened Quasars (2007, background): “The relatively low N/H are in sharp contrast to the high N/H ratios of the luminous quasar sample of McLure et al. (1999), which is tied to the Dunlop et al. (2003) sample.”
Spectral Energy Distributions and Multiwavelength Selection of Type 1 Quasars (2006, background): “Such estimates of the contribution of host galaxy light to the SEDs can be made by applying simple scaling relationships among host bulge luminosity, bulge mass, black hole mass, and Eddington luminosity (e.g., Dunlop et al. 2003; Vanden Berk et al. 2006).”
An ALMA [C ii] Survey of 27 Quasars at z > 5.94 (2018, background): “…optics (e.g., Falomo et al. 2005; Inskip et al. 2011), or capitalizing on the exquisite angular resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope (e.g., Dunlop et al. 2003; Bennert et al. 2011; Schramm & Silverman 2013; Park et al. 2015), in some cases aided by natural magnification (Peng et al. 2006;…”
A Hubble Space Telescope Survey of Extended [O III] λ5007 Å Emission in a Far-Infrared-Selected Sample of Seyfert Galaxies: Results (2003, background): “…to interacting systems, presenting tidal tails and bridges (Stockton & MacKenty 1987; Bahcall, Kirhakos & Schneider 1995; Bahcall et al. 1997; Dunlop et al. 2003), that these interactions can provide debries at large distances from the nucleus, which can be ionized by the central engine,…”
CANDELS: CONSTRAINING THE AGN–MERGER CONNECTION WITH HOST MORPHOLOGIES AT z ∼ 2 (2011, background): “However Dunlop et al. (2003) find that QSOs at z ∼ 0.2 are no more likely to exhibit structural disturbances when compared to a control sample of similar non-active galaxies.”
UNIFICATION OF LUMINOUS TYPE 1 QUASARS THROUGH C iv EMISSION (2010, background): “In terms of morphologies, since elliptical galaxies host both RL and RQ quasars, while spiral galaxies host only RQ quasars (e.g., Dunlop et al. 2003), we might expect that the RL-like RQ objects will have different morphology than the remainder of the RQ sample.”
On the evolution of the black‐hole/spheroid mass ratio (2005, background): “…diagram (e.g. Rocca-Volmerange et al. 2004) and the host galaxies of powerful radio galaxies (McLure et al. 2004; Bettoni et al. 2003; Dunlop et al. 2003; McLure & Dunlop 2000) have demonstrated that 3C-class radio-loud AGN are repr - sentative of the high-mass end of the early-type…”
Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - IV: Interactions trigger AGN (2011, background): “Similarly, there are claims that AGN hosts are no more tidally distorted than inactive galaxies (Dunlop et al. 2003; Gabor et al. 2009; Cisternas et al. 2011; Kocevski et al. 2011), but counter claimsalso exist (e.g. Koss et al. 2010; Ramos Almeida 2011a,b).”
The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO survey: QSO clustering and the L-z degeneracy (2006, methodology): “This picture is supported by the similar ‘shape’ of the cosmological star formation history of the Universe and the evolution of the QSO number density as a function of redshift (e.g. Schmidt 1970; Boyle, Shanks & Peterson 1988; Schmidt, Schneider & Gunn 1995; Madau et al. 1996; Dunlop et al. 2003).”
Determining the Properties and Evolution of Red Galaxies from the Quasar Luminosity Function (2005, background): “…at high redshift (which should relax to become normal present ellipticals) are excessively blue, both from AGN contributions and recent starburst activity (see, e.g. Bahcall et al. 1997; Canalizo & Stockton 2001; Dunlop et al. 2003; Sánchez et al. 2004; Jahnke et al. 2004, and references therein).”
A DEEP HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE H-BAND IMAGING SURVEY OF MASSIVE GAS-RICH MERGERS. II. THE QUEST QSOs (2006, methodology): “Overall, the positions of the ULIRGs and PG QSOs in our sample are consistent with those of intermediate-size ( 1L – 2L ) elliptical/ lenticular galaxies, while the hosts of the luminous QSOs in the Dunlop et al. (2003) sample are more massive elliptical galaxies.”
Timing the starburst–AGN connection (2010, background): “AGN (the observational manifestation of growing black holes) are found in galaxies with bulges, from early-type spirals through to massive ellipticals (Ho, Filippenko & Sargent 1997; Dunlop et al. 2003; Kauffmann et al. 2003; but see Filippenko & Ho 2003 for an exception).”