Present-Day Growth of Black Holes and Bulges: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Perspective

By T. Heckman, G. Kauffmann, J. Brinchmann, S. Charlot, Christy A. Tremonti, Simon D. M. White. 2004

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We investigate the accretion-driven growth of supermassive black holes in the low-redshift universe using 23,000 narrow-emission-line ("type 2") active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and the complete sample of 123,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey from which they were drawn. We use the stellar velocity dispersions of the early-type galaxies and AGN hosts to estimate their black hole masses, and we use the AGN [O III] λ5007 emission line luminosities to estimate black hole accretion rates. We find that most present-day accretion occurs onto black holes with masses less than 108 M☉ that reside in moderately massive galaxies (M* ≈ 1010-1011.5 M☉) with high stellar surface mass densities (μ* ≈ 108.5-109.5 M☉ kpc-2) and young stellar populations. The volume-averaged accretion rates of low-mass black holes (<3 × 107 M☉) imply that this population is growing on a timescale that is comparable to the age of the universe. Around half this growth takes place in AGNs that are radiating within a factor of 5 of the Eddington luminosity. Such systems are rare, making up only 0.2% of the low-mass black hole population at the present day. The rest of the growth occurs in lower luminosity AGNs. The growth timescale is more than 2 orders of magnitude longer for the population of the most massive black holes in our sample. The volume-averaged ratio of star formation to black hole accretion in bulge-dominated galaxies is ~1000, in remarkable agreement with the observed ratio of stellar mass to black hole mass in nearby galaxy bulges. We conclude that (1) bulge formation and black hole formation are tightly coupled, even in present-day galaxies, and (2) the evolution of the AGN luminosity function documented in recent optical and X-ray surveys is driven by a decrease in the characteristic mass scale of actively accreting black holes.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c7f77dcae66709dfd1de0fd7f9eff94a16d3266c

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Citations in the corpus

The UV-Optical Galaxy Color-Magnitude Diagram. III. Constraints on Evolution from the Blue to the Red Sequence (2007, neutral): “We have used the value-added data set of AGN properties generated by Heckman et al. (2004) to explore this.”
Towards a complete census of AGN in nearby Galaxies: a large population of optically unidentified AGN (2009, background): “However, in contrast to Ho97 and Heckman et al. (2004), we find that a large fraction of Sc–Sd-type galaxies host AGN activity at midIR wavelengths (≈ 22+13 −9 percent; i.e., a comparable AGN fraction to that found in Sab–Sbc galaxies).”
Radiative feedback from quasars and the growth of massive black holes in stellar spheroids (2004, result): “Subsequent quasar activity will be characterized by a very small duty cycle (∼0.001), as predicted by hydrodynamical simulations (CO97, 01) and suggested by observations (Haiman et al. 2004; Heckman et al. 2004).”
The Relationship of Hard X-Ray and Optical Line Emission in Low-Redshift Active Galactic Nuclei (2005, methodology): “…the ratio of the optical continuum and [O iii] luminosity for optically selected Type 1 AGNs in the SDSS has a standard deviation of 0.34 dex (see Heckman et al. 2004; Zakamska et al. 2003), while the distributions of the ratio of the 60 m and [O iii] luminosities for far-IRselected Type 1 and 2…”
The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe (2014, methodology): “Large-scale spectroscopic surveys of the contemporary universe (particularly 2dFGRS and SDSS) have revolutionized the study of emission-line AGN, by providing high-quality spectra for over a million galaxies, with well-understood selection functions.”
The Cosmic Evolution of Hard X-Ray-selected Active Galactic Nuclei (2004, result): “This is consistent with the work of Heckman et al. (2004), who found from their analysis of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data that most of the present-day accretion is occurring onto low-mass black holes (M < few ; 107 M ), with massive black holes currently experiencing very little additional…”
A unified model for AGN feedback in cosmological simulations of structure formation (2007, result): “If we extrapolate the BHAR and SFR densities to z = 0, the ratio of the two is of order of 2 × 103, a value that is roughly in agreement with estimates from the local population of galaxies (Heckman et al., 2004).”
Active Galactic Nuclei in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. Sample Selection (2005, methodology): “…we can directly measure the approximate black hole mass using the MBH- relation developed first in quiescent galaxies (Gebhardt et al. 2000; Ferrarese & Merritt 2000; Ferrarese et al. 2001; Tremaine et al. 2002) and further derive the accretion rate for various types of AGNs (Heckman et al. 2004).”
CONSTRAINTS ON BLACK HOLE GROWTH, QUASAR LIFETIMES, AND EDDINGTON RATIO DISTRIBUTIONS FROM THE SDSS BROAD-LINE QUASAR BLACK HOLE MASS FUNCTION (2010, background): “…Shankar et al. 2004; Merloni & Heinz 2008), conclusions based on the quasar luminosity function (e.g., Steffen et al. 2003; Ueda et al. 2003; Croom et al. 2004; La Franca et al. 2005; Hasinger et al. 2005; Hopkins et al. 2007c; Silverman et al. 2008) and the local active BHMF (Heckman et al. 2004).”
GALAXY ZOO: THE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT CO-EVOLUTION OF SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES AND THEIR EARLY- AND LATE-TYPE HOST GALAXIES (2010, methodology): “In our investigation, we go beyond characterizing AGN host galaxies as a single class, as in some previous studies (e.g., Kauffmann et al. 2003a; Heckman et al. 2004), and dissect the AGN host galaxy population into sub-populations by observed properties such as mass, color and most importantly,…”
Energetic galaxy-wide outflows in high-redshift ultraluminous infrared galaxies hosting AGN activity (2012, methodology): “However, we compared all the SED-derived AGN bolometric luminosities to those predicted using the measured [OIII ] luminosities and the locally derived relationship of Heckman et al. (2004) (LAGN=3500L[OIII ]).”
A CATALOG OF QUASAR PROPERTIES FROM SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY DATA RELEASE 7 (2010, methodology): “This correlation is usually used to estimate the bolometric luminosity using the [OIII] λ5007 luminosity as a surrogate for type 2 quasars (e.g, Kauffmann et al. 2003; Zakamska et al. 2003; Heckman et al. 2004; Reyes et al. 2008).”
Metallicities and Physical Conditions in Star-forming Galaxies at z ~ 1.0-1.5 (2008, background): “…they found properties of their candidate low-metallicity H II/AGN composites similar to those of the host galaxies of AGNs (Kauffmann et al. 2003a; Heckman et al. 2004); these objects have on average significantly higher stellar masses, older stellar populations,and redder colors than the sample…”
Active Galactic Nuclei in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. II. Emission-Line Luminosity Function (2005, background): “The independence of the nuclear luminosity and the host galaxy luminosity implies that the nuclear luminosity does not depend on the central black hole mass (Heckman et al. 2004).”
Cold Molecular Outflows in the Local Universe and Their Feedback Effect on Galaxies (2018, methodology): “In this case, the AGN luminosity is inferred from the relation LAGN ∼ 3500 L[O III] (Heckman et al. 2004).”
The Mass Function of Active Black Holes in the Local Universe (2007, methodology): “Finally, all lines are convolved to the typical velocity resolution of the SDSS, σ ≈ 71 km s−1 (e.g., Heckman et al. 2004).”
SELF-CONSISTENT MODELS OF THE AGN AND BLACK HOLE POPULATIONS: DUTY CYCLES, ACCRETION RATES, AND THE MEAN RADIATIVE EFFICIENCY (2007, background): “The assumption of a singlėm is clearly not valid for low luminosity AGNs in the nearby universe, which have a wide range of Eddington ratios (e.g., Heckman et al. 2004, Greene & Ho 2007).”
How special are Brightest Group and Cluster Galaxies (2006, neutral): “After subtracting the stellar continuum, emission line fluxes can be accurately measured, allowing studies of the star formation rates (Brinchmann et al. 2004)and AGN activity (Heckman et al. 2004; Kauffmann et al. 2003c).”