Black Hole Mass, Velocity Dispersion, and the Radio Source in Active Galactic Nuclei

By C. Nelson. 2000

164 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The recent discovery by Gebhardt et al. and Ferrarese & Merritt of a correlation between nuclear black hole mass Mbh and stellar velocity dispersion σ* in elliptical galaxies and spiral bulges has raised the question whether such a relationship exists for active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Estimates of Mbh for many AGNs, made using reverberation mapping techniques, allow exploration of the relationship between black hole mass, the host galaxy, and the energetics of nuclear emission. However, since only a few AGNs have both Mbh and σ* measurements, we use the [O III] λ5007 emission-line widths on the assumption that for most AGNs the forbidden line kinematics are dominated by virial motion in the host galaxy bulge. We find that a relation does exist between Mbh and the [O III] line width for AGNs, which is similar to the one found by Gebhardt et al., although with more scatter, as expected if secondary influences on the gas kinematics are also present. Our conclusion is that both active and inactive galaxies follow the same relationship between black hole mass and bulge gravitational potential. We find no compelling evidence for systematic differences in the mass estimates from reverberation mapping and stellar dynamics. We also find that for radio-quiet AGNs, the radio power and black hole mass are highly correlated, linking emission on scales of kiloparsecs with the nuclear energy source.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dbea1e631371d434e43fa8ee0718fd3e4a8f91b5

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

Citations in the corpus

Testing the evolutionary link between submillimetre galaxies and quasars: CO observations of QSOs at z∼ 2 (2008, background): “…[Oiii] line width (see Table 2), a proxy for the measure of the stellar velocity dispersion (supporting the idea that the narrow-line region gas is in orbital motion in the gravitational potential well of the bulge; Nelson & Whittle 1996; Nelson 2000; Bonning et al. 2005), with the CO line width.”
Systematic Errors in the Estimation of Black Hole Masses by Reverberation Mapping (2000, background): “A similar relationship between the central mass inferred by reverberation mapping and the narrow line width has been found by Nelson (2000).”
The Evolution of the MBH-σ Relation (2005, background): “…in various stages of development are the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT, 20–25 m; Johns et al. 2004), California Extremely Large Telescope (CELT, 30m; Nelson 2000b), Euro50 (50m; Andersen et al. 2004), Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL, 100m;Dierickx et al. 2004), Japanese Extremely Large…”
On the Nature of Seyfert Galaxies with High [O III] λ5007 Blueshifts (2008, background): “…the width of [OIII] has become a convenient proxy for stellar velocity dispersion (e.g., Terlevich et al. 1990, Whittle 1992, Nelson & Whittle 1996, Nelson 2000, Shields et al. 2003, Boroson 2003, Greene & Ho 2005, Netzer and Trakhtenbrot 2007, Salviander et al. 2007) after removing [OIII] blue…”
Simultaneous X-ray/optical/UV snapshots of active galactic nuclei from XMM–Newton: spectral energy distributions for the reverberation mapped sample (2008, methodology): “We employ the values of radio loudness (R = L6cm/LB) presented in Nelson (2000) for this sample of AGN to identify three AGN (3C 120, 3C 390.3, PG 1226+023 ≡ 3C 273) with R > 10.”
The Radio Luminosity-Black Hole Mass Correlation for Quasars from the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey and a “Unification Scheme” for Radio-loud and Radio-quiet Quasars (2001, methodology): “A correlation between radio luminosity and black hole masses also estimated from line widths, but using the narrow [Oiii] l5007 line, was found by Nelson (2000).”
Cosmic Evolution of Mass Accretion Rate and Metallicity in Active Galactic Nuclei (2006, background): “For example, FWHM([O III ] λ5007) has been suggested as a proxy forσ∗ in type-I AGNs (e.g. Nelson 2000; Shields et al. 2003; Grupe & Mathur 2004; Boroson 2003; Boroson 2005).”
On the Maximum Luminosity of Galaxies and Their Central Black Holes: Feedback from Momentum-driven Winds (2004, background): “Both papers estimate the velocity dispersionof galaxies hosting quasars using the width of the narrow OIII line (see Nelson 2000).”
Neutrino-dominated accretion flows as the central engine of gamma-ray bursts (2017, background): “The criterion, Q < 1, indicates that the disk is gravitationally unstable, which may cause two classes of possible behaviors (e.g., Perna et al. 2006): (1) If the local cooling of the disk is rapid, the disk may fragment into two or more parts (e.g., Nelson 2000).”
Probing the Coevolution of Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxies Using Gravitationally Lensed Quasar Hosts (2006, background): “…and normal galaxies share many of the same characteristics (e.g. Hutchings Crampton, & Campbell 1984; Gehren et al. 1984; Neugebauer et al. 1985; Lehnert et al. 1992; McLeod & Rieke 1994, McLeod 1995; Lawrence 1999; Nelson 2000; Wang, Biermann, & Wandel 2000): they look alike in gross appearance.”
On the Relationship between Radio Emission and Black Hole Mass in Galactic Nuclei (2001, background): “A number of statistical studies of luminous AGNs indicate that the processes responsible for the generation of radio sources depend directly on BH mass (McLure et al. 1999 ; Nelson 2000 ; Laor 2000 ; McLure & Dunlop 2001).”
Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Calibration of the Black Hole Mass-Velocity Dispersion Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei (2004, methodology): “With the FWHM([O III]) data tabulated by Nelson (2000) for our 16 AGNs, we looked at the relationship with σ∗.”