A CORRELATION BETWEEN STAR FORMATION RATE AND AVERAGE BLACK HOLE ACCRETION IN STAR-FORMING GALAXIES

By Chien-Ting J. Chen, R. Hickox, S. Alberts, M. Brodwin, C. Jones, S. Murray, D. M. Alexander, R. Assef, Michael J. I. Brown, A. Dey and 7 more. Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, 2013

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We present a measurement of the average supermassive black hole accretion rate (BHAR) as a function of the star formation rate (SFR) for galaxies in the redshift range 0.25 < z < 0.8. We study a sample of 1767 far-IR-selected star-forming galaxies in the 9 deg2 Boötes multi-wavelength survey field. The SFR is estimated using 250 μm observations from the Herschel Space Observatory, for which the contribution from the active galactic nucleus (AGN) is minimal. In this sample, 121 AGNs are directly identified using X-ray or mid-IR selection criteria. We combined these detected AGNs and an X-ray stacking analysis for undetected sources to study the average BHAR for all of the star-forming galaxies in our sample. We find an almost linear relation between the average BHAR (in M☉ yr−1) and the SFR (in M☉ yr−1) for galaxies across a wide SFR range 0.85 < log SFR < 2.56: log BHAR = (− 3.72 ± 0.52) + (1.05 ± 0.33)log SFR. This global correlation between SFR and average BHAR is consistent with a simple picture in which SFR and AGN activity are tightly linked over galaxy evolution timescales.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bf43f3ac6a944867bedb2a7c08a81fc49cb7309b

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Citations in the corpus

Black holes on FIRE: stellar feedback limits early feeding of galactic nuclei (2017, background): “Correlations between dynamical BH mass measurements and host galaxy properties in the local Universe (e.g. Häring & Rix 2004; Graham 2016; Savorgnan et al. 2016) have been interpreted as (1) a non-causal consequence of hierarchical merging (Peng 2007; Hirschmann et al. 2010; Jahnke & Macciò 2011),”
Galaxy Interactions Trigger Rapid Black Hole Growth: an unprecedented view from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey (2017, background): “This clear separation of mid-IR AGN residing in star-forming galaxies over quiescent galaxies serves to highlight the previously observed connection between star-formation rate and BH accretion rate (e.g., Chen et al. 2013; Hickox et al. 2014).”
Kiloparsec-scale outflows are prevalent among luminous AGN: outflows and feedback in the context of the overall AGN population (2014, background): “…the fact that AGN luminosity, SFR and radio luminosity are closely related (e.g., Tadhunter et al. 1998; Ivison et al. 2010; Mullaney et al. 2012; Chen et al. 2013) and that small duty cycles may mean that an AGN-driven outflow may be observed when the AGN itself is no longer observable (e.g.,…”
Cosmic X-ray surveys of distant active galaxies (2015, background): “The SFR is found to correlate tightly with AGN luminosity when averaged over all galaxies in a cosmological volume, irrespective of whether an AGN is detected or not (e.g., when calculated as a function of galaxy mass or SFR; e.g., Rafferty et al 2011; Mullaney et al 2012a; Chen et al 2013).”
A remarkably flat relationship between the average star formation rate and AGN luminosity for distant X-ray AGN. (2015, background): “This result may initially seem in disagreement with the results of studies such as Rafferty et al. (2011), Mullaney et al. (2012b), Chen et al. (2013), Delvecchio et al. (2014), and Rodighiero et al. (2015), which find a correlation between the average LAGN and SFR of star-forming galaxies.”
BLACK HOLE VARIABILITY AND THE STAR FORMATION–ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS CONNECTION: DO ALL STAR-FORMING GALAXIES HOST AN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS? (2013, methodology): “Overall, this simple model produces remarkable agreement with both the results on the average AGN luminosity of SF galaxies (Symeonidis et al. 2011; Rafferty et al. 2011; Chen et al. 2013) and the average SFR of AGNs (Lutz et al. 2010; Shao et al. 2010; Rosario et al. 2012).”
Star formation sustained by gas accretion (2014, background): “…(Silich et al. 2010; Hopkins et al. 2013a; Trujillo-Gomez et al. 2013), secular evolution (Binney 2013; Kormendy 2013), dense cluster environments (Santini 2011; Kravtsov & Borgani 2012), and the growth of black holes (BH) through cosmic gas accretion (Husemann et al. 2011; Chen et al. 2013).”
The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe (2014, background): “…is seen in hydrodynamic simulations (e.g. Gaspari et al. 2013) and is also suggested by both the episodic history of star-formation found by Chen et al. (2013) in massive galaxies (M∗ > 10 11M⊙) and by the apparent anti-correlation they find between a recent burst of star formation and the…”
Gravitational torque-driven black hole growth and feedback in cosmological simulations (2016, background): “…gravitational torques, as increasingly suggested by observations of AGN in star-forming galaxies (e.g. Rafferty et al. 2011; Mullaney et al. 2012; Chen et al. 2013; Rosario et al. 2013; Trump et al. 2013, 2015; Heckman & Best 2014; Hickox et al. 2014; Vito et al. 2014; Dai et al. 2015;…”