scholarly journals Determination of the Intrinsic Scatter in the MBH–σ and MBH–Lbulge Relations

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (S267) ◽  
pp. 189-194
Author(s):  
Kayhan Gültekin
Keyword(s):  
Black Hole ◽  
Measurement Errors ◽  
Mass Function ◽  
Host Galaxy ◽  
Black Hole Mass ◽  
Upper Limits ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
Intrinsic Scatter

AbstractWe derive improved versions of the relations between supermassive black hole mass MBH and host-galaxy bulge velocity dispersion σ and luminosity L (the MBH–σ and MBH–Lbulge relations), based on ~ 50 MBH measurements and ~ 20 upper limits. Particular attention is paid to recovery of the intrinsic scatter (ϵ0) in both relations. We find the scatter to be significantly larger than estimated in most previous studies. The large scatter requires revision of the local black hole mass function, and it implies that there may be substantial selection bias in studies of the evolution of the MBH–σ and MBH–Lbulge relations. When only considering ellipticals, the scatter decreases. These results appear to be insensitive to a wide range of assumptions about the measurement errors and the distribution of intrinsic scatter. We also investigate the effects on the fits of culling the sample according to the resolution of the black hole's sphere of influence.

scholarly journals ALMA observations of molecular tori around massive black holes

2019 ◽  
Vol 623 ◽  
pp. A79 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Combes ◽  
S. García-Burillo ◽  
A. Audibert ◽  
L. Hunt ◽  
A. Eckart ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Black Hole ◽  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Center Of Mass ◽  
Host Galaxy ◽  
Molecular Outflow ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Liner Galaxies ◽  
Circumnuclear Disk ◽  
Sphere Of Influence

We report Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of CO(3-2) emission in a sample of seven Seyfert/LINER galaxies at the unprecedented spatial resolution of 0.″1 = 4−8 pc. Our aim is to explore the close environment of active galactic nuclei (AGN), and the dynamical structures leading to their fueling, through the morphology and kinematics of the gas inside the sphere of influence of the black hole. The selected galaxies host low-luminosity AGN and have a wide range of activity types (Seyferts 1 to 2, LINERs), and barred or ringed morphologies. The observed maps reveal the existence of circumnuclear disk structures, defined by their morphology and decoupled kinematics, in most of the sample. We call these structures molecular tori, even though they often appear as disks without holes in the center. They have varying orientations along the line of sight, unaligned with the host galaxy orientation. The radius of the tori ranges from 6 to 27 pc, and their mass from 0.7 × 107 to 3.9 × 107 M⊙. The most edge-on orientations of the torus correspond to obscured Seyferts. In only one case (NGC 1365), the AGN is centered on the central gas hole of the torus. On a larger scale, the gas is always piled up in a few resonant rings 100 pc in scale that play the role of a reservoir to fuel the nucleus. In some cases, a trailing spiral is observed inside the ring, providing evidence for feeding processes. More frequently, the torus and the AGN are slightly off-centered with respect to the bar-resonant ring position, implying that the black hole is wandering by a few 10 pc amplitude around the center of mass of the galaxy. Our spatial resolution allows us to measure gas velocities inside the sphere of influence of the central black holes. By fitting the observations with different simulated cubes, varying the torus inclination and the black hole mass, it is possible to estimate the mass of the central black hole, which is in general difficult for such late-type galaxies, with only a pseudo-bulge. In some cases, AGN feedback is revealed through a molecular outflow, which will be studied in detail in a subsequent article.

scholarly journals Constraining astrophysical observables of galaxy and supermassive black hole binary mergers using pulsar timing arrays

2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (1) ◽  
pp. 401-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siyuan Chen ◽  
Alberto Sesana ◽  
Christopher J Conselice
Keyword(s):  
Black Hole ◽  
Mass Function ◽  
Host Galaxy ◽  
Supermassive Black Hole ◽  
Pulsar Timing ◽  
Upper Limits ◽  
Binary Mergers ◽  
Black Hole Binary ◽  
Merger Rate ◽  
The Universe

ABSTRACT We present an analytic model to describe the supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) merger rate in the Universe with astrophysical observables: galaxy stellar mass function, pair fraction, merger time-scale, and black hole–host galaxy relations. We construct observational priors and compute the allowed range of the characteristic spectrum hc of the gravitational wave background (GWB) to be 10−16 < hc < 10−15 at a frequency of f = 1 yr−1. We exploit our parametrization to tackle the problem of astrophysical inference from pulsar timing array (PTA) observations. We simulate a series of upper limits and detections and use a nested sampling algorithm to explore the parameter space. Corroborating previous results, we find that the current PTA non-detection does not place significant constraints on any observables; however, either future upper limits or detections will significantly enhance our knowledge of the SMBHB population. If a GWB is not detected at a level of hc(f = 1 yr−1) = 10−17, our current understanding of galaxy and SMBHB mergers is disfavoured at a 5σ level, indicating a combination of severe binary stalling, overestimating of the SMBH–host galaxy relations, and extreme dynamical properties of merging SMBHBs. Conversely, future detections of a Square Kilometre Array (SKA)-type instrument will allow to constrain the normalization of the SMBHB merger rate in the Universe, the time between galaxy pairing and SMBHB merging, the normalization of the SMBH–host galaxy relations and the dynamical binary properties, including their eccentricity and density of stellar environment.

scholarly journals X-Ray Determination of the Black-Hole Mass in Cygnus X-1

1998 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 388-389
Author(s):  
A. Kubota ◽  
K. Makishima ◽  
T. Dotani ◽  
H. Inoue ◽  
K. Mitsuda ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Hole ◽  
Compact Object ◽  
Optical Observations ◽  
Black Hole Mass ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Supergiant Star ◽  
X Ray Binaries ◽  
Two Bodies

About 10 X-ray binaries in our Galaxy and LMC/SMC are considered to contain black hole candidates (BHCs). Among these objects, Cyg X-1 was identified as the first BHC, and it has led BHCs for more than 25 years(Oda 1977, Liang and Nolan 1984). It is a binary system composed of normal blue supergiant star and the X-ray emitting compact object. The orbital kinematics derived from optical observations indicates that the compact object is heavier than ~ 4.8 M⊙ (Herrero 1995), which well exceeds the upper limit mass for a neutron star(Kalogora 1996), where we assume the system consists of only two bodies. This has been the basis for BHC of Cyg X-1.

Substructure in black hole scaling diagrams and implications for the coevolution of black holes and galaxies

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S359) ◽  
pp. 37-39
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Davis ◽  
Nandini Sahu ◽  
Alister W. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Black Hole ◽  
Stellar Mass ◽  
Host Galaxy ◽  
Scaling Relations ◽  
Black Hole Mass ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
Stellar Velocity ◽  
Galaxy Sample ◽  
Evolutionary Paths ◽  
Black Hole Masses

AbstractOur multi-component photometric decomposition of the largest galaxy sample to date with dynamically-measured black hole masses nearly doubles the number of such galaxies. We have discovered substantially modified scaling relations between the black hole mass and the host galaxy properties, including the spheroid (bulge) stellar mass, the total galaxy stellar mass, and the central stellar velocity dispersion. These refinements partly arose because we were able to explore the scaling relations for various sub-populations of galaxies built by different physical processes, as traced by the presence of a disk, early-type versus late-type galaxies, or a Sérsic versus core-Sérsic spheroid light profile. The new relations appear fundamentally linked with the evolutionary paths followed by galaxies, and they have ramifications for simulations and formation theories involving both quenching and accretion.

scholarly journals Supermassive black hole mass regulated by host galaxy morphology

2009 ◽  
Vol 400 (4) ◽  
pp. 1803-1807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Watabe ◽  
N. Kawakatu ◽  
M. Imanishi ◽  
T. T. Takeuchi
Keyword(s):  
Black Hole ◽  
Host Galaxy ◽  
Black Hole Mass ◽  
Supermassive Black Hole ◽  
Galaxy Morphology

scholarly journals Toward Precision Measurement of Central Black Hole Masses

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (S267) ◽  
pp. 151-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley M. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Black Hole ◽  
Host Galaxy ◽  
Reverberation Mapping ◽  
Line Region ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Black Hole Masses ◽  
Intrinsic Scatter ◽  
Direct And Indirect Methods

AbstractWe review briefly direct and indirect methods of measuring the masses of black holes in galactic nuclei, and then focus attention on supermassive black holes in active nuclei, with special attention to results from reverberation mapping and their limitations. We find that the intrinsic scatter in the relationship between the AGN luminosity and the broad-line region size is very small, ~0.11 dex, comparable to the uncertainties in the better reverberation measurements. We also find that the relationship between reverberation-based black hole masses and host-galaxy bulge luminosities also seems to have surprisingly little intrinsic scatter, ~0.17 dex. We note, however, that there are still potential systematics that could affect the overall mass calibration at the level of a factor of a few.

scholarly journals Observations of the γ-ray emitting narrow-line Seyfert 1, SBS 0846+513, and its host galaxy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy S Hamilton ◽  
Marco Berton ◽  
Sonia Antón ◽  
Lorenzo Busoni ◽  
Alessandro Caccianiga ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Hole ◽  
Adaptive Optics ◽  
Host Galaxy ◽  
Narrow Line ◽  
Black Hole Mass ◽  
Residual Structure ◽  
Line Region ◽  
Resolution Imaging ◽  
Γ Ray ◽  
Adaptive Optics System

Abstract The γ-ray emitting galaxy SBS 0846 + 513 has been classified as a Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) from its spectroscopy, and on that basis would be thought likely to have a small central black hole hosted in a spiral galaxy. But very few of the γ-ray NLS1 have high-resolution imaging of their hosts, so it is unknown how the morphology expectation holds up for the γ-emitting class. We have observed this galaxy in the J-band with the Large Binocular Telescope’s LUCI1 camera and the ARGOS adaptive optics system. We estimate its black hole mass to lie between $4.2\times 10^7 \le \frac{\text{M}}{\text{M}_\odot } \le 9.7\times 10^7$, using the correlation with bulge luminosity, or $1.9\times 10^7 \le \frac{\text{M}}{\text{M}_\odot } \le 2.4\times 10^7$ using the correlation with Sérsic index. Our favoured estimate is 4.2 × 107M⊙, putting its mass at the high end of the NLS1 range in general but consistent with others that are γ-ray emitters. These estimates are independent of the Broad Line Region viewing geometry and avoid any underestimates due to looking down the jet axis. Its host shows evidence of a bulge + disc structure, from the isophote shape and residual structure in the nuclear-subtracted image. This supports the idea that γ-ray NLS1 may be spiral galaxies, like their non-jetted counterparts.

scholarly journals OPTICAL THERMONUCLEAR TRANSIENTS FROM TIDAL COMPRESSION OF WHITE DWARFS AS TRACERS OF THE LOW END OF THE MASSIVE BLACK HOLE MASS FUNCTION

2016 ◽  
Vol 819 (1) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgan MacLeod ◽  
James Guillochon ◽  
Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz ◽  
Daniel Kasen ◽  
Stephan Rosswog
Keyword(s):  
Black Hole ◽  
White Dwarfs ◽  
Mass Function ◽  
Black Hole Mass ◽  
Massive Black Hole
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