X-ray emission from the Ultramassive Black Hole candidate NGC1277: implications and speculation on its origin

Abstract

We study the X-ray emission from NGC1277, a galaxy in the core of the Perseus cluster, for which van den Bosch et al. have recently claimed the presence of an UltraMassive Black Hole (UMBH) of mass 1.7 times 10^10 Msun, unless the IMF of the stars in the stellar bulge is extremely bottom heavy. The X-rays originate in a power-law component of luminosity 1.3 times 10^40 erg/s embedded in a 1 keV thermal minicorona which has a half-light radius of about 360 pc, typical of many early-type galaxies in rich clusters of galaxies. If Bondi accretion operated onto the UMBH from the minicorona with a radiative efficiency of 10 per cent, then the object would appear as a quasar with luminosity 10^46 erg/s, a factor of almost 10^6 times higher than observed. The accretion flow must be highly radiatively inefficient, similar to past results on M87 and NGC3115. The UMBH in NGC1277 is definitely not undergoing any significant growth at the present epoch. We note that there are 3 UMBH candidates in the Perseus cluster and that the inferred present mean mass density in UMBH could be 10^5 Msun/Mpc^3, which is 20 to 30 per cent of the estimated mean mass density of all black holes. We speculate on the implied growth of UMBH and their hosts, and discuss the possibiity that extreme AGN feedback could make all UMBH host galaxies have low stellar masses at redshifts around 3. Only those which end up at the centres of groups and clusters later accrete large stellar envelopes and become Brightest Cluster Galaxies. NGC1277 and the other Perseus core UMBH, NGC1270, have not however been able to gather more stars or gas owing to their rapid orbital motion in the cluster core.

5 pages, 4 figures, MNRAS in press

References in corpus (5)

• A systematic variation of the stellar initial mass function in early-type galaxies
• An Over-Massive Black Hole in the Compact Lenticular Galaxy NGC1277
• X-ray thermal coronae of galaxies in hot clusters -- ubiquity of embedded mini cooling cores
• Morphological evolution of galaxies from ultradeep HST WFC3 imaging: the Hubble sequence at z~2
• X-ray active galactic nuclei in the core of the Perseus cluster

Cited by in corpus (23)

• The cosmic evolution of massive black holes in the Horizon-AGN simulation
• The X-ray Halo Scaling Relations of Supermassive Black Holes
• Hunting for Supermassive Black Holes in Nearby Galaxies with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope
• Massive relic galaxies challenge the co-evolution of SMBHs and their host galaxies
• A 5x10^9 Solar Mass Black Hole in NGC 1277 from Adaptive Optics Spectroscopy
• Galactic Scale Feedback Observed in the 3C 298 Quasar Host Galaxy
• The Black Hole in the Compact, High-dispersion Galaxy NGC 1271
• The most massive black holes on the Fundamental Plane of Black Hole Accretion
• The origin of compact galaxies with anomalously high black hole masses
• A normal supermassive black hole in NGC 1277
• Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): Accurate number densities & environments of massive ultracompact galaxies at 0.02 < z < 0.3
• The overmassive black hole in NGC 1277: new constraints from molecular gas kinematics
• Dark matter concentrations in galactic nuclei according to polytropic models
• The X-ray coronae of the two brightest galaxies in the Coma cluster
• Discovery of five low luminosity active galactic nuclei at the centre of the Perseus cluster
• A Captured Runaway Black Hole in NGC 1277?
• Dark halo microphysics and massive black hole scaling relations in galaxies
• Ultra-massive black hole feedback in compact galaxies
• The influence of mergers and ram-pressure stripping on black hole-bulge correlations
• On the Origin and Nature of Dark Matter
• The X-ray Coronae of two massive galaxies in the core of the Perseus cluster
• Distinguishing the formation paths of massive compact ETGs through their internal dynamical structures
• Cosmic quenching and scaling laws for the evolution of supermassive black holes and host galaxies