Probing the Growth of Massive Black Holes with Black Hole–Host Galaxy Spin Correlations

AbstractThe coalescence of black hole binaries is a significant source of gravitational wave radiation. The typically asymmetric nature of this emission, which carries linear momentum, can result in the recoil of the black hole remnant with velocities in the range 100 < Vrecoil < 3750 km s−1. The detectability of recoiling massive black holes (MBH) as off-nuclear QSOs is tightly connected with the properties of the host galaxy, which determine the MBH's orbit and fuel reservoir. We present the results of N-body simulations of recoiling MBHs in high-resolution, non-axisymmetric potentials. We find that if the recoil velocities are high enough to reach regions of the galaxy dominated by the generally triaxial dark matter distribution, the return time is significantly extended when compared to a spherical distribution. We also perform simulations of recoiling MBHs traveling in gas merger remnants, where large amounts of gas have been funneled to the central regions, In this case, the MBHs remain within R<1 kpc from the center of the host even for high recoil velocities (Vrecoil = 1200 km s−1) due to the compactness of the remnant galaxy's nuclear disk. We discuss the implications of both scenarios for detectability.

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Discovery of a 12 billion solar mass black hole at redshift 6.3 and its challenge to the black hole/galaxy coevolution at cosmic dawn

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921315010066 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 11 (S319) ◽

pp. 80-83 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Xue-Bing Wu ◽

Feige Wang ◽

Xiaohui Fan ◽

Weimin Yi ◽

Wenwen Zuo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Galaxy Formation ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Host Galaxy ◽

Black Hole Mass ◽

Solar Mass ◽

Massive Black Holes ◽

Mass Assembly

AbstractThe existence of black holes with masses of about one billion solar masses in quasars at redshifts z > 6 presents significant challenges to theories of the formation and growth of black holes and the black hole/galaxy co-evolution in the early Universe. Here we report a recent discovery of an ultra-luminous quasar at redshift z = 6.30, which has an observed optical and near-infrared luminosity a few times greater than those of previously known z > 6 quasars. With near-infrared spectroscopy, we obtain a black hole mass of about 12 billion solar masses, which is well consistent with the mass derived by assuming an Eddington-limited accretion. This ultra-luminous quasar with at z > 6 provides a unique laboratory to the study of the mass assembly and galaxy formation around the most massive black holes at cosmic dawn. It raises further challenges to the black hole/galaxy co-evolution in the epoch of cosmic reionization because the black hole needs to grow much faster than the host galaxy.

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The Early Evolution of Massive Black Holes

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921310005521 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 5 (S267) ◽

pp. 26-33 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Marta Volonteri

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Velocity Dispersion ◽

Host Galaxy ◽

Formation Processes ◽

Hole Formation ◽

Physical Processes ◽

Massive Black Hole ◽

Potential Wells ◽

Massive Black Holes

AbstractMassive black holes (MBHs) are nowadays believed to reside in most local galaxies. Studies have also established a number of relations between the MBH mass and properties of the host galaxy such as bulge mass and velocity dispersion. These results suggest that central MBHs, while much less massive than their hosts (~ 0.1%), are linked to the evolution of galactic structure. When did it all start? In hierarchical cosmologies, a single big galaxy today can be traced back to the stage when it was split up in hundreds of smaller components. Did MBH seeds form with the same efficiency in small proto-galaxies, or did their formation have to await the buildup of substantial galaxies with deeper potential wells? I briefly review here some of the physical processes that are conducive to the evolution of the massive black hole population. I will discuss black hole formation processes for “seed” black holes that are likely to take place at early cosmic epochs, and possible observational tests of these scenarios.

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A loud quasi-periodic oscillation after a star is disrupted by a massive black hole

Science ◽

10.1126/science.aar7480 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 363 (6426) ◽

pp. 531-534 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Dheeraj R. Pasham ◽

Ronald A. Remillard ◽

P. Chris Fragile ◽

Alessia Franchini ◽

Nicholas C. Stone ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Periodic Oscillation ◽

Host Galaxy ◽

X Rays ◽

Tidal Disruption ◽

Massive Black Hole ◽

Quasi Periodic Oscillation ◽

Massive Black Holes ◽

Tidal Forces

The tidal forces close to massive black holes can rip apart stars that come too close to them. As the resulting stellar debris spirals toward the black hole, the debris heats up and emits x-rays. We report observations of a stable 131-second x-ray quasi-periodic oscillation from the tidal disruption event ASASSN-14li. Assuming the black hole mass indicated by host galaxy scaling relations, these observations imply that the periodicity originates from close to the event horizon and that the black hole is rapidly spinning. Our findings demonstrate that tidal disruption events can generate quasi-periodic oscillations that encode information about the physical properties of their black holes.

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X-ray properties of reverberation-mapped AGNs with super-Eddington accreting massive black holes

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921320002756 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 15 (S356) ◽

pp. 143-143

Author(s):

Jaya Maithil ◽

Michael S. Brotherton ◽

Bin Luo ◽

Ohad Shemmer ◽

Sarah C. Gallagher ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Accretion Rate ◽

Time Lags ◽

Black Hole Mass ◽

Host Galaxies ◽

Massive Black Holes ◽

X Ray ◽

Photon Index ◽

The Impact

AbstractActive Galactic Nuclei (AGN) exhibit multi-wavelength properties that are representative of the underlying physical processes taking place in the vicinity of the accreting supermassive black hole. The black hole mass and the accretion rate are fundamental for understanding the growth of black holes, their evolution, and the impact on the host galaxies. Recent results on reverberation-mapped AGNs show that the highest accretion rate objects have systematic shorter time-lags. These super-Eddington accreting massive black holes (SEAMBHs) show BLR size 3-8 times smaller than predicted by the Radius-Luminosity (R-L) relationship. Hence, the single-epoch virial black hole mass estimates of highly accreting AGNs have an overestimation of a factor of 3-8 times. SEAMBHs likely have a slim accretion disk rather than a thin disk that is diagnostic in X-ray. I will present the extreme X-ray properties of a sample of dozen of SEAMBHs. They indeed have a steep hard X-ray photon index, Γ, and demonstrate a steeper power-law slope, ασx.

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An accreting < 105M⊙ black hole at the center of dwarf galaxy IC750

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921320003488 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 15 (S356) ◽

pp. 376-376

Author(s):

Ingyin Zaw

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Dwarf Galaxies ◽

Dwarf Galaxy ◽

Host Galaxy ◽

Scaling Relations ◽

Host Galaxies ◽

Seed Formation ◽

Maser Emission ◽

Water Masers

AbstractNuclear black holes in dwarf galaxies are important for understanding the low end of the supermassive black hole mass distribution and the black hole-host galaxy scaling relations. IC 750 is a rare system which hosts an AGN, found in ˜0.5% of dwarf galaxies, with circumnuclear 22 GHz water maser emission, found in ˜3–5% of Type 2 AGNs. Water masers, the only known tracer of warm, dense gas in the center parsec of AGNs resolvable in position and velocity, provide the most precise and accurate mass measurements of SMBHs outside the local group. We have mapped the maser emission in IC 750 and find that it traces a nearly edge-on warped disk, 0.2 pc in diameter. The central black hole has an upper limit mass of ˜1 × 105 M⊙ and a best fit mass of ˜8 × 104 M⊙, one to two orders of magnitude below what is expected from black hole-galaxy scaling relations. This has implications for models of black hole seed formation in the early universe, the growth of black holes, and their co-evolution with their host galaxies.

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Gaseous Disks in the Nuclei of Elliptical Galaxies

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100043293 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 163 ◽

pp. 620-625 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

H. Ford ◽

Z. Tsvetanov ◽

L. Ferrarese ◽

G. Kriss ◽

W. Jaffe ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Angular Momentum ◽

Accretion Disks ◽

Large Scale ◽

Elliptical Galaxies ◽

Central Mass ◽

Massive Black Holes ◽

Radio Jets

AbstractHST images have led to the discovery that small (r ~ 1″ r ~ 100 – 200 pc), well-defined, gaseous disks are common in the nuclei of elliptical galaxies. Measurements of rotational velocities in the disks provide a means to measure the central mass and search for massive black holes in the parent galaxies. The minor axes of these disks are closely aligned with the directions of the large–scale radio jets, suggesting that it is angular momentum of the disk rather than that of the black hole that determines the direction of the radio jets. Because the disks are directly observable, we can study the disks themselves, and investigate important questions which cannot be directly addressed with observations of the smaller and unresolved central accretion disks. In this paper we summarize what has been learned to date in this rapidly unfolding new field.

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Toward Precision Measurement of Central Black Hole Masses

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921310006095 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 5 (S267) ◽

pp. 151-160 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

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.

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The Sub-Eddington Boundary for the Quasar Mass–Luminosity Plane: A Theoretical Perspective

Universe ◽

10.3390/universe5060145 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (6) ◽

pp. 145 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

David Garofalo ◽

Damian J. Christian ◽

Andrew M. Jones

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Black Hole ◽

Survey Data ◽

Theoretical Perspective ◽

Sloan Digital Sky Survey ◽

Black Hole Mass ◽

Massive Black Holes ◽

Sky Survey ◽

Data Release ◽

Gap Paradigm

By exploring more than sixty thousand quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5, Steinhardt & Elvis discovered a sub-Eddington boundary and a redshift-dependent drop-off at higher black hole mass, possible clues to the growth history of massive black holes. Our contribution to this special issue of Universe amounts to an application of a model for black hole accretion and jet formation to these observations. For illustrative purposes, we include ~100,000 data points from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 where the sub-Eddington boundary is also visible and propose a theoretical picture that explains these features. By appealing to thin disk theory and both the lower accretion efficiency and the time evolution of jetted quasars compared to non-jetted quasars in our “gap paradigm”, we explain two features of the sub-Eddington boundary. First, we show that a drop-off on the quasar mass-luminosity plane for larger black hole mass occurs at all redshifts. But the fraction of jetted quasars is directly related to the merger function in this paradigm, which means the jetted quasar fraction drops with decrease in redshift, which allows us to explain a second feature of the sub-Eddington boundary, namely a redshift dependence of the slope of the quasar mass–luminosity boundary at high black hole mass stemming from a change in radiative efficiency with time. We are able to reproduce the mass dependence of, as well as the oscillating behavior in, the slope of the sub-Eddington boundary as a function of time. The basic physical idea involves retrograde accretion occurring only for a subset of the more massive black holes, which implies that most spinning black holes in our model are prograde accretors. In short, this paper amounts to a qualitative overview of how a sub-Eddington boundary naturally emerges in the gap paradigm.

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Very high redshift quasars and the rapid emergence of super-massive black holes

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/staa2276 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Pavel Kroupa ◽

Ladislav Subr ◽

Tereza Jerabkova ◽

Long Wang

Keyword(s):

Black Hole ◽

Massive Star ◽

High Redshift ◽

Host Galaxy ◽

Massive Black Hole ◽

First Stars ◽

Massive Black Holes ◽

Nuclear Cluster ◽

Gas Accretion ◽

Very High

Abstract The observation of quasars at very high redshift such as Pōniuā’ena is a challenge for models of super-massive black hole (SMBH) formation. This work presents a study of SMBH formation via known physical processes in star-burst clusters formed at the onset of the formation of their hosting galaxy. While at the early stages hyper-massive star-burst clusters reach the luminosities of quasars, once their massive stars die, the ensuing gas accretion from the still forming host galaxy compresses its stellar black hole (BH) component to a compact state overcoming heating from the BH–BH binaries such that the cluster collapses, forming a massive SMBH-seed within about a hundred Myr. Within this scenario the SMBH–spheroid correlation emerges near-to-exactly. The highest-redshift quasars may thus be hyper-massive star-burst clusters or young ultra-compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs), being the precursors of the SMBHs that form therein within about 200 Myr of the first stars. For spheroid masses ≲ 109.6 M⊙ a SMBH cannot form and instead only the accumulated nuclear cluster remains. The number evolution of the quasar phases with redshift is calculated and the possible problem of missing quasars at very high redshift is raised. SMBH-bearing UCDs and the formation of spheroids are discussed critically in view of the high redshift observations. A possible tension is found between the high star-formation rates (SFRs) implied by downsizing and the observed SFRs, which may be alleviated within the IGIMF theory and if the downsizing times are somewhat longer.

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