The Black Hole-Bulge Relationship in Luminous Broad-Line Active Galactic Nuclei and Host Galaxies

Abstract

We have measured the stellar velocity dispersions (σ_*) and estimated the central black hole (BH) masses for over 900 broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) observed with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The sample includes objects which have redshifts up to z=0.452, high quality spectra, and host galaxy spectra dominated by an early-type (bulge) component. The AGN and host galaxy spectral components were decomposed using an eigenspectrum technique. The BH masses (M_BH) were estimated from the AGN broad-line widths, and the velocity dispersions were measured from the stellar absorption spectra of the host galaxies. The range of black hole masses covered by the sample is approximately 10^6 < M_BH < 10^9 M_Sun. The host galaxy luminosity-velocity dispersion relationship follows the well-known Faber-Jackson relation for early-type galaxies, with a power-law slope 4.33+-0.21. The estimated BH masses are correlated with both the host luminosities (L_{H}) and the stellar velocity dispersions (σ_*), similar to the relationships found for low-redshift, bulge-dominated galaxies. The intrinsic scatter in the correlations are large (~0.4 dex), but the very large sample size allows tight constraints to be placed on the mean relationships: M_BH ~ L_H^{0.73+-0.05} and M_BH ~ σ_*^{3.34+-0.24}. The amplitude of the M_BH-σ_* relation depends on the estimated Eddington ratio, such that objects with larger Eddington ratios have smaller black hole masses than expected at a given velocity dispersion.

Accepted for publication in AJ

References in corpus (4)

• The 2.5 m Telescope of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
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• The Origin of the Intrinsic Scatter in the Relation Between Black Hole Mass and Bulge Luminosity for Nearby Active Galaxies
• Decomposition of the Host Galaxies of Active Galactic Nuclei Using Hubble Space Telescope Images
• Properties of Active Galaxies Deduced from H I Observations
• A note on black hole masses estimated by the second moment in Narrow Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies
• First case of strong gravitational lensing by a QSO : SDSS J0013+1523 at z = 0.120
• The radio luminosity, black hole mass and Eddington ratio for quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey