Testing a scale-independent method to measure the mass of black holes

Abstract

Estimating the black hole mass at the center of galaxies is a fundamental step not only for understanding the physics of accretion, but also for the cosmological evolution of galaxies. Recently a new method, based solely on X-ray data, was successfully applied to determine the black hole mass in Galactic systems. Since X-rays are thought to be produced via Comptonization process both in stellar and supermassive black holes, in principle, the same method may be applied to estimate the mass in supermassive black holes. In this work we test this hypothesis by performing a systematic analysis of a sample of AGNs, whose black hole mass has been already determined via reverberation mapping and which possess high quality XMM-Newton archival data. The good agreement obtained between the black hole masses derived with this novel scaling technique and the reverberation mapping values suggests that this method is robust and works equally well on stellar and supermassive black holes, making it a truly scale-independent technique for black hole determination.

16 pages, 6 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (11)

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• Reverberation Mapping Measurements of Black Hole Masses in Six Local Seyfert Galaxies
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• A panchromatic view of PKS 0558-504: an ideal laboratory to study the disk-jet link
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• What can we learn about quasars from alpha_OX measurements in galactic black hole binaries?
• On the distance of GRO J1655-40
• The high energy emission of GRO J1655-40 as revealed with INTEGRAL spectroscopy of the 2005 outburst
• Implication of the observable spectral cutoff energy evolution in XTE J1550-564

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• The soft excess of the NLS1 galaxy Mrk 359 studied with an XMM-Newton-NuSTAR monitoring campaign
• The first simultaneous X-ray broad-band view of Mrk 110 with XMM-Newton and NuSTAR
• Analysis of X-ray spectral variability and black hole mass determination of the NLS1 galaxy Mrk 766
• Spitzer Observations of MF 16 Nebula and the associated Ultraluminous X-ray Source
• Constraining black hole masses in low-accreting AGN using X-ray spectra
• Further Evidence for the Accretion Disk Origination of the Double-Peaked Broad H$\alpha$ of 3C390.3
• The physical origin of the X-ray power spectral density break timescale in accreting black holes
• Fundamental Reference AGN Monitoring Experiment (FRAMEx) III: Radio Emission in the Immediate Vicinity of Radio Quiet AGNs
• Assessing indirect methods to determine black hole masses using NGC 4151
• Estimating black hole masses in obscured AGN using X-rays
• The long-term broad-line responsivity in MKN 110
• Measuring the black hole mass in Ultraluminous X-ray Sources with the X-ray Scaling Method
• Quasar Host Galaxies and the $M_{SMBH}$ - ${\sigma }_{\ast }$ Relation
• Massive black holes and their galaxies
• Measuring monster MBHs: maybe mighty, maybe merely massive