On the Black Hole Mass-Bulge Mass Relation

Abstract

We have re-examined the relation between the mass of the central black holes in nearby galaxies, M bh , and the stellar mass of the surrounding spheroid or bulge, M bulge . For a total of 30 galaxies bulge masses were derived through Jeans equation modeling or adopted from dynamical models in the literature. In stellar mass-to-light ratios the spheroids and bulges span a range of a factor of eight. The bulge masses were related to well-determined black hole masses taken from the literature. With these improved values for M bh , compared to Magorrian et al. (1998), and our redetermination of M bulge , we find the M bh − M bulge relation becomes very tight. We find M bh ∼ M 1.12±0.06 bulge with an observed scatter of 0.30 dex, a fraction of which can be attributed to measurement errors. The scatter in this relation is therefore comparable to the scatter in the relations of M bh with σ and the stellar concentration. These results confirm and refine the work of Marconi and Hunt (2003). For M bulge ∼ 5 × 10 10 M ⊙ the median black hole mass is 0.14% ± 0.04% of the bulge mass.

The Co-Evolution of Galaxies and Black Holes: Current Status and Future Prospects

“…At least out to a redshift of three, the overall evolution in the rates of starformation and black hole accretion track one another rather well: a steep rise by about an order-of-magnitude from z = 0 to 1 and then relatively little change between z = 1 to 3 (e.g., Marconi et al 2004). Coupled with the tight correlation between the mass of the black hole and the velocity dispersion and mass of the galactic bulge within which it resides (e.g., Gultekin et al 2009;Marconi & Hunt 2003;Haring & Rix 2004), there is 4 T. M. Heckman then compelling evidence for a close connection between the formation of the black hole and that of its host galaxy (e.g., Kauffmann & Haehnelt 2000;Granato et al 2001).…”

Dusty star-forming galaxies at high redshift

“…This figure is reproduced from Alexander et al (2008) with permission from the authors and AAS. The local relationship is given by the dashed line (Häring & Rix, 2004), whereas the measurement for radio-selected AGN between 0 < z < 2 is shown in dark gray (McLure et al, 2006) and z > 2 quasars in light gray (Peng et al, 2006). Also overplotted are measurements of local obscured ULIRGs (Veilleux et al, 1997(Veilleux et al, , 1999.…”

“…Alexander et al place observational constraints on central black-hole masses for SMGs using Hα (or Hβ) line analysis in addition to the X-rays. They find that SMGs have black-hole masses to galaxy mass ratios 3-5× lower than local relationship (Häring & Rix, 2004), and much lower than other high-redshift populations of AGN (McLure et al, 2006;Peng et al, 2006). A summary of results regarding X-ray studies of SMGs and their AGN is summarized in Figure 27.…”

Growing Supermassive Black Holes in Cosmological Simulations of Structure Formation

“…The dashed line denotes the observational estimate by Häring & Rix (2004) for a local sample of galaxies. For BH masses above ∼ 5 × 10 6 M , the simulated and observed relations agree very well, indicating that possibly not too much evolution is expected in this relation from z = 1 to z = 0.…”

“…Recent observational findings (e.g., Tremaine et al 2002;Häring & Rix 2004) have shown that BHs are tightly linked to the properties of their host galaxies. From a theoretical standpoint it is still unclear why a relationship between BHs and galaxy bulges should exist or how it evolves with redshift.…”