On the correlations between galaxy properties and supermassive black hole mass

Author： Beifiori A. Courteau S. Corsini E. M. Zhu Y.

ISSN： 0035-8711

Source： Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol.419, Iss.3, 2012-01, pp. : 2497-2528

Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.

Previous Menu Next

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe use a large sample of upper limits and accurate estimates of supermassive black hole (SMBH) masses coupled with libraries of host galaxy velocity dispersions, rotational velocities and photometric parameters extracted from Sloan Digital Sky Survey i-band images to establish correlations between the SMBH and host galaxy parameters. We test whether the mass of the black hole, M_•, is fundamentally driven by either local or global galaxy properties. We explore correlations between M_• and stellar velocity dispersion σ_e, i-band bulge luminosity L_{i, bulge}, bulge mass M_bulge, bulge Sérsic index n, bulge mean effective surface brightness 〈μ_{e, bulge}〉, i-band luminosity of the galaxy L_{i, gal}, galaxy stellar mass , maximum circular velocity V_c, and galaxy dynamical and effective masses M_{dyn, gal} and M_{e, gal}. We verify the tightness of the M_•–σ_e relation and find that correlations with other galaxy parameters do not yield tighter trends. We do not find differences in the M_•–σ_e relation of barred and unbarred galaxies. The M_•–σ_e relation of pseudo-bulges is also coarser and has a different slope than that involving classical bulges. The M_•–M_bulge is not as tight as the M_•–σ_e relation, despite the bulge mass proving to be a better proxy of M_• than bulge luminosity, and despite adding the bulge effective radius as an additional fitting parameter. Contrary to various published reports, we find a rather poor correlation between M_• and n (or 〈μ_{e, bulge}〉), suggesting that M_• is not related to the bulge light concentration. The correlations between M_• and galaxy luminosity or mass are not a marked improvement over the M_•–σ_e relation. These scaling relations depend sensitively on the host galaxy morphology: early-type galaxies follow a tighter relation than late-type galaxies. If V_c is a proxy for the dark matter halo mass, the large scatter of the M_•–V_c relation then suggests that M_• is more coupled to the baryonic rather than the dark matter. We have tested the need for a third parameter in the M_• scaling relations, through various linear correlations with bulge and galaxy parameters, only to confirm that the Fundamental Plane of the SMBH is mainly driven by σ_e with a small tilt due to the effective radius. We provide a compendium of galaxy structural properties for most of the SMBH hosts known to date.