The Black Hole Mass-Bulge Luminosity Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei From Reverberation Mapping and Hubble Space Telescope Imaging
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We investigate the relationship between black hole mass and bulge
luminosity for active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with reverberation-based
black hole mass measurements and bulge luminosities from two-dimensional
decompositions of Hubble Space Telescope host galaxy images. We find
that the slope of the relationship for AGNs is 0.76-0.85 with an
uncertainty of ~0.1, somewhat shallower than the M BH vprop L
1.0±0.1 relationship that has been fit to nearby
quiescent galaxies with dynamical black hole mass measurements. This
difference is somewhat perplexing, as the AGN black hole masses include
an overall scaling factor that brings the AGN M
BH-ssstarf relationship into agreement with
that of quiescent galaxies. We discuss biases that may be inherent to
the AGN and quiescent galaxy samples and could cause the apparent
inconsistency in the forms of their M BH-L bulge
relationships. Recent work by Graham, however, presents a similar slope
of ~0.8 for the quiescent galaxies and may bring the relationship for
AGNs and quiescent galaxies into agreement.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Astrophysical Journal Letters |
Volume | 694 |
Issue number | 2 |
Pages (from-to) | L166 |
ISSN | 0004-637X |
Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2009 |
ID: 44201408