Observational constraints on growth of massive black holes

By Qingjuan Yu, S. Tremaine. 2002

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We study the observational constraints on the growth of massive black holes (BHs) in galactic nuclei. We use the velocity dispersions of early-type galaxies obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the relation between BH mass and velocity dispersion to estimate the local BH mass density to be ρ•(z= 0) ≃ (2.5 ± 0.4) × 105h0.652M⊙ Mpc−3. We also use the quasi-stellar object (QSO) luminosity function from the 2dF Redshift Survey to estimate the BH mass density accreted during optically bright QSO phases. The local BH mass density is consistent with the density accreted during optically bright QSO phases if QSOs have a mass-to-energy conversion efficiency e≃ 0.1. By studying the continuity equation for the BH mass distribution, including the effect of BH mergers, we find relations between the local BH mass function and the QSO luminosity function. If the BH mass is assumed to be conserved during BH mergers, comparison of the predicted relations with the observations suggests that luminous QSOs (Lbol≳ 1046 erg s−1) have a high efficiency (e.g. e∼ 0.2, which is possible for thin-disc accretion on to a Kerr BH) and the growth of high-mass BHs (≳108M⊙) comes mainly from accretion during optically bright QSO phases, or that luminous QSOs have a super-Eddington luminosity. If luminous QSOs are not accreting with super-Eddington luminosities and the growth of low-mass BHs also occurs mainly during optically bright QSO phases, less luminous QSOs must accrete with a low efficiency, <0.1; alternatively, they may accrete with high efficiency, but a significant fraction should be obscured. We estimate that the mean lifetime of luminous QSOs (Lbol≳ 1046 erg s−1) is (3–13) × 107 yr, which is comparable to the Salpeter time. We also investigate the case in which total BH mass decreases during BH mergers due to gravitational radiation; in the extreme case in which total BH entropy is conserved, the observations again suggest that BHs in most luminous QSOs are Kerr BHs accreting with an efficiency ≳0.1.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d2b748e09facfa7de63ae8d93e38df021549f82d

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Citations in the corpus

The illustris simulation: Public data release (2015, methodology): “nd AGN feedback: Di Matteo et al. (2008); Springel et al. (2005a); Di Matteo et al. (2005); Sijacki et al. (2007, 2009); Vogelsberger et al. (2013); Ciotti and Ostriker (2007); Sazonov et al. (2005); Yu and Tremaine (2002). postprocessing, these catalogs are used to generate two distinct merger tree”
The Blast Wave Model for AGN Feedback: Effects on AGN Obscuration (2008, methodology): “…luminosity so produced by a QSO hosted in a given galaxy is then provided by L ¼ c 2 macc : ð3Þ We adopt an energy conversion efficiency ¼ 0:1 (see Yu & Tremaine 2002), and derive the X-ray luminosities LX in the 2Y10 keV band from the bolometric corrections given inMarconi et al. (2004).”
Rapid Growth of High-Redshift Black Holes (2005, background): “Yu & Tremaine (2002), Elvis, Risaliti, & Zamorani (2002), and Marconi et al. (2004), compared the local MBH mass density to the mass density accreted by luminous quasars, showing that quasars have a mass-to-energy conversion efficiency ǫ ∼> 0.1 (an argument originally proposed by Soltan 1982).”
Black holes in astrophysics (2005, background): “The current data suggest an efficiency η ∼ 0.1− 0.15 for supermassive BHs on average (Elvis, Risaliti & Zamorani 2002; Yu & Tremaine 2002), and ∼ 0.2 or even larger for the most massive systems (Yu & Tremaine 2002).”
The anti‐hierarchical growth of supermassive black holes (2004, background): “In fact, previous comparisons between direct estimates of the local black hole mass density, ρBH,0 ≡ ρBH(z = 0) ≡ ∫ ∞ 0 MφM (z = 0) dM , and the total energy density liberated by powerful quasars over the cosmic history, as originally proposed by Soltan (1982), seem to consistently suggest that SMBH”
THE RADIATIVE EFFICIENCY OF ACCRETION FLOWS IN INDIVIDUAL ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2010, methodology): “Recent studies based on the Soltan argument lead to ηav & 0.1 (e.g. Yu & Tremaine 2002; Elvis et al. 2002; Marconi et al. 2004; Barger et al. 2005).”
PRECISE BLACK HOLE MASSES FROM MEGAMASER DISKS: BLACK HOLE–BULGE RELATIONS AT LOW MASS (2010, background): “The Local Black Hole Mass Function It is common practice in the literature to take the observed distribution of bulge velocity dispersions or magnitudes and infer the local BH mass function (e.g., Yu & Tremaine 2002; Marconi et al. 2004).”
Nuclear Activity in Nearby Galaxies (2008, background): “Following an argument first due to So ltan (1982), comparison of the integrated radiation density from quasars to the integrated mass density in local BHs shows that BHs have grown mostly via a radiatively efficient mode of accretion during their bright AGN phase (e.g., Yu & Tremaine 2002).”
Direct Cosmological Simulations of the Growth of Black Holes and Galaxies (2007, background): “…reproduces the locally measured value and its extrapolation to higher redshift (z < 2:5), inferred from integrating the X-ray luminosity functions (Yu & Tremaine 2002; Marconi et al. 2004; Shankar et al. 2004) or, more directly, the bolometric quasar luminosity function (Hopkins et al. 2007c).”
SIZES AND TEMPERATURE PROFILES OF QUASAR ACCRETION DISKS FROM CHROMATIC MICROLENSING (2010, positive): “Following Pooley et al. (2007), we set fEdd = 0.25 (Kollmeier et al. 2006) and η = 0.15 (Yu & Tremaine 2002).”
Doing Science with eLISA: Astrophysics and Cosmology in the Millihertz Regime (2012, background): “However, the gravitational fields responsible for the orbital motion in known binary pulsars are not much stronger than those in the Solar System: the semimajor axis of the orbit of PSR 1913+16 is about 1.4 R .”
The Cosmic Evolution of Hard X-Ray-selected Active Galactic Nuclei (2004, methodology): “We compared our accreted supermassive black hole mass density for broad-line AGNs alone with the optical QSO determination made by Yu & Tremaine (2002), using the Boyle et al. (2000) QSO luminosity function, assuming ¼ 0:1.”
Radiative Feedback from Massive Black Holes in Elliptical Galaxies: AGN Flaring and Central Starburst Fueled by Recycled Gas (2007, positive): “…et al. 2006a; Croton et al. 2006), as strongly supported by the remarkable correlations found between host galaxy properties and the masses of their SMBHs (see, e.g.,Magorrian et al. 1998; Ferrarese & Merritt 2000; Gebhardt et al. 2000; Yu & Tremaine 2002; McLure & Dunlop 2002; Graham et al. 2003).”
Supermassive Stars in Quasar Disks (2003, background): “This notion has long been abandoned on grounds of stability (§2), and more conclusively because statistical arguments demonstrate that quasars convert mass to energy much more efficiently than nuclear fusion (Soltan 1982; Chokshi & Turner 1992; Yu & Tremaine 2002).”
Active galactic nuclei flicker: an observational estimate of the duration of black hole growth phases of ∼105 yr (2015, methodology): “The Soltan (1982) argument implies characteristic growth times of black holes on the order of 100 Myr to 1 Gyr (see also Yu & Tremaine 2002) for reasonable radiative efﬁciencies η .”
Stellar and Quasar Feedback in Concert: Effects on AGN Accretion, Obscuration, and Outflows (2015, background): “…2009b), together with constraints indicating that most BH mass is assembled in an optically bright quasar phase (Soltan 1982; Salucci et al. 1999; Yu & Tremaine 2002; Hopkins et al. 2006b), has led to the development of models where large-scale effects of feedback from accretion self-regulate BH…”
The Mass Function of Active Black Holes in the Local Universe (2007, methodology): “Mass functions derived from stellar velocity dispersions (whether they be inactive [Yu & Tremaine 2002] or narrow-line active galaxies [Heckman et al. 2004]) are necessarily limited to the current spectral resolution limits oflargearea spectroscopic surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey…”
Supercritical Accretion Flows around Black Holes: Two-dimensional, Radiation Pressure-dominated Disks with Photon Trapping (2005, background): “Observational constraints are proposed by Yu & Tremaine (2002), by which most of luminous quasars must be sub-critical accretion phase.”