Black-Hole Spin and Galactic Morphology

Abstract

We investigate the conjecture by Sikora, Stawarz & Lasota (2007) that the observed AGN--radio-loudness bimodality can be explained by the morphology-related bimodality of black-hole spin distribution in the centers of galaxies: central black holes in giant elliptical galaxies may have (on average) much larger spins than black holes in spiral/disc galaxies. We study how accretion from a warped disc influences the evolution of black hole spins and conclude that within the cosmological framework, where the most massive BHs have grown in mass via merger driven accretion, one indeed expects most supermassive black holes in elliptical galaxies to have on average higher spin than black holes in spiral galaxies, where random, small accretion episodes (e.g. tidally disrupted stars, accretion of molecular clouds) might have played a more important role.

Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (5)

• Accretion states and radio loudness in Active Galactic Nuclei: analogies with X-ray binaries
• The X-ray and Radio Connection in Low-luminosity Active Nuclei
• The host galaxies of luminous quasars
• The host galaxy/AGN connection. Brightness profiles of early-type galaxies hosting Seyfert nuclei
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Cited by in corpus (14)

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• Modeling the cosmological co-evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies: I. BH scaling relations and the AGN luminosity function
• New Insights on the QSO Radio-Loud/Radio-Quiet Dichotomy: SDSS Spectra in the Context of the 4D Eigenvector1 Parameter Space
• The Origin of the Intrinsic Scatter in the Relation Between Black Hole Mass and Bulge Luminosity for Nearby Active Galaxies
• Black hole spin and radio loudness in a LCDM universe
• Jet enhanced accretion growth of supermassive black holes
• The role of thermal evaporation in galaxy formation
• The Accretion Geometry in Radio-Loud Active Galaxies
• Nonaxisymmetric Effects in the Black Hole Accretion Inviscid Hydrodynamics: Formation and Evolution of a Tilted Torus
• The relation between black hole masses and Lorentz factors of the jet components in blazars
• Radio Bimodality: Spin, Accretion Mode, or Both?
• Rapidly spinning massive black holes in active galactic nuclei: evidence from the black hole mass function
• Radio-loudness of Active Galaxies and the Black Hole Evolution
• Evolution of massive black holes