Precise Black Hole Masses From Megamaser Disks: Black Hole-Bulge Relations at Low Mass

Greene, Jenny E.; Peng, Chien Y.; Kim, Minjin; Kuo, C. Y.; Braatz, J. A.; Impellizzeri, C. M. V.; Condon, J. J.; Lo, K. Y.; Henkel, C.; Reid, M. J.

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/721/1/26

Cited by 249 publications

(320 citation statements)

References 157 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

302

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…4.3, Fisher & Drory (2011) recently suggested that pseudobulges may be the dominant class of bulges at low masses. Thus, the number of outliers in the BH-galaxy classical relations could be very high, impacting the demography of local BHs by severely reducing the expected number density of low mass BHs in the local Universe (similar thoughts were also put forward by Gadotti & Kauffmann 2009;Greene et al 2010). This in turn could have a non-negligible repercussion on accretion and merging models that try to tune parameters such as the radiative efficiency and Eddington ratio distributions by matching the full shape of the local BH mass function (e.g., Marulli et al 2008;Shankar et al 2012b).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Black holes in pseudobulges: demography and models

Shankar

Marulli

Mathur

et al. 2012

A&A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Context. There is mounting evidence that a significant fraction of black holes (BHs) today live in late-type galaxies, including bulgeless galaxies and those hosting pseudobulges, and are significantly undermassive with respect to the scaling relations followed by their counterpart BHs in classical bulges of similar stellar (or even bulge) mass. Aims. Here we discuss the predictions of two state-of-the-art hierarchical galaxy formation models in which BHs grow via mergers and, in one, also via disc instability. Our aim is to understand if the wealth of new data on local BH demography is consistent with standard models. Methods. We follow the merger trees of representative subsamples of BHs and compute the fractional contributions of different processes to the final BH mass. Results. We show that the model in which BHs always closely follow the growth of their host bulges, also during late disk instabilities (i.e., bars), produces too narrow a distribution of BHs at fixed stellar mass to account for the numerous low-mass BHs now detected in later-type galaxies. Models with a looser connection between BH growth and bar instability instead predict the existence of a larger number of undermassive BHs, in better agreement with the observations. Conclusions. The scatter in the updated local BH-bulge mass relation (with no restriction on galaxy type) appears to be quite large when including later-type systems, but it can still be managed to be reproduced within current hierarchical models. However, the fuelling of BHs during the late bar-instability mode needs to be better quantified/improved to properly fit the data. We conclude discussing how the possibly large number of BHs in later type galaxies demands for an in-depth revision of the local BH mass function and its modelling.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Black holes in pseudobulges: demography and models

Shankar

Marulli

Mathur

et al. 2012

A&A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…According to this view, kilomasers like those in NGC 6300 or NGC 2273, for which the nature of the emission is still uncertain, could be speculatively associated with AGN activity because of the high nuclear column density. Interestingly, very recent results indicate that the latter maser source is indeed associated with an accretion disk around the central engine of the galaxy (Greene et al 2010). Unfortunately, for five kilomaser galaxies (NGC 1106, NGC 3359, NGC 3620, NGC 4293, and NGC 4527), no information on column densities could be obtained.…”

Section: Kilomasers Revisitedmentioning

confidence: 99%

New H₂O masers in Seyfert and FIR bright galaxies

Tarchi

Castangia

Henkel

et al. 2010

A&A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Context. Very luminous extragalactic water masers, the megamasers, are associated with active galactic nuclei (AGN) in galaxies characterized by accretion disks, radio jets, and nuclear outflows. Weaker masers, the kilomasers, seem to be related mostly to star formation activity, although the possibility exists that some of these sources may belong to the weak tail of the AGN maser distribution. Aims. It is particularly important to accurately locate the water maser emission to reveal its origin and shed light on extragalactic starforming activity or to elucidate the highly obscured central regions of galaxies. Methods. We performed interferometric observations of three galaxies, NGC 3556, Arp 299, and NGC 4151, where water emission was found. Statistical tools were used to study the relation between OH and H 2 O maser emission in galaxies. Results. The maser in NGC 3556 is associated with a compact radio continuum source that is most likely a supernova remnant or radio supernova. In Arp 299, the luminous water maser has been decomposed in three main emitting regions associated with the nuclear regions of the two main galaxies of the system, NGC 3690 and IC 694, and the region of overlap. In NGC 4151, only one of the two previously observed maser components has been tentatively detected. This feature, if real, is associated with the galaxy's central region. The only galaxy, so far, where luminous maser emission from two maser species, OH and H 2 O, has been confidently detected is Arp 299. Weaker masers from these two species instead coexist in a number of objects. A search for emission from both maser species in a larger number of galaxies is, however, needed to assess these last two results better.

show abstract

“…Civλ1549 also shows a blueshift and profile asymmetry in many sources (Gaskell 1982;Brotherton 1996;Sulentic et al 2007;Richards et al 2011), which challenges the validity of the virial assumption. Some consistency can be achieved if several cautions and corrections are applied to the Civλ1549 measures (Assef et al 2011;Denney 2012;Greene et al 2010, and especially in the 4DE1 context as done by Sulentic et al 2007), but this is not the road to M BH estimates with uncertainties less than 1 dex. In the 4DE1 context (Sulentic et al 2000b) both Hβ and Civλ1549 show strikingly different profile properties for Pop.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is MgIIλ2800 a reliable virial broadening estimator for quasars?

Marziani

Sulentic

Plauchu-Frayn

et al. 2013

A&A

156

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Context. Broad Mgiiλ2800 and Hβ lines have emerged as the most reliable virial estimators of the black hole mass in quasars. Which is more reliable? Part of the challenge centers on comparing Mgiiλ2800 and Hβ line profiles in order to improve the ±1 dex M BH uncertainties inherent in single-epoch FWHM measures from noisy spectra. Aims. We compare Mgiiλ2800 and Hβ profile measures in the same sources and especially FWHM measures that provide the virial broadening estimator. Methods. We identify 680 bright Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 quasars with spectra showing both Mgiiλ2800 and Hβ lines at redshift 0.4 ≤ z ≤ 0.75. The S/N of these spectra are high enough to allow binning in the "four-dimensional (4D) eigenvector 1" optical plane and construction of high S/N composite spectra. Results. We confirm that Mgiiλ2800 shows a profile that is ≈20% narrower as suggested in some previous studies. FWHM measures for Population B sources (i.e., with FWHM of Hβ larger than 4000 km s −1 ) are uncertain because they show complex profiles with at least two broad-line components involving a nearly unshifted broad and redshifted very-broad component. Only the broad component is likely to be a valid virial estimator. If Hβ and Mgiiλ2800 are not corrected for the very broad component then black hole mass M BH values for Population B sources will be systematically overestimated by up to Δ logM BH ≈ 0.3−0.4 dex. We suggest a simple correction that can be applied to the majority of sources. Mgiiλ2800 is the safer virial estimator for Population B sources because the centroid shifts with respect to rest frame are lower than for Hβ. In the broad and very broad component profile interpretation, this is a consequence of the lower very broad to broad component intensity ratio for Mgiiλ2800. Eigenvector-based studies show that effective discrimination of black hole mass and Eddington ratio at fixed redshift is not achieved via luminosity binning but rather by binning in a "4D eigenvector 1" context that reflects different broad line region geometry/kinematics probably driven by the Eddington ratio.

show abstract

Precise Black Hole Masses From Megamaser Disks: Black Hole-Bulge Relations at Low Mass

Cited by 249 publications

References 157 publications

Black holes in pseudobulges: demography and models

Black holes in pseudobulges: demography and models

New H₂O masers in Seyfert and FIR bright galaxies

Is MgIIλ2800 a reliable virial broadening estimator for quasars?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Precise Black Hole Masses From Megamaser Disks: Black Hole-Bulge Relations at Low Mass

Cited by 249 publications

References 157 publications

Black holes in pseudobulges: demography and models

Black holes in pseudobulges: demography and models

New H2O masers in Seyfert and FIR bright galaxies

Is MgIIλ2800 a reliable virial broadening estimator for quasars?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

New H₂O masers in Seyfert and FIR bright galaxies