Quenching of supermassive black hole growth around the apparent maximum mass

Abstract

Recent quasar surveys have revealed that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) rarely exceed a mass of $M_{\mathrm{BH}}\sim \mathrm{a}\mathrm{few}\times 10^{10}{M}_{\odot }$ during the entire cosmic history. It has been argued that quenching of the BH growth is caused by a transition of a nuclear accretion disk into an advection dominated accretion flow, with which strong outflows and/or jets are likely to be associated. We investigate a relation between the maximum mass of SMBHs and the radio-loudness of quasars with a well-defined sample of $\sim 10^5$ quasars at a redshift range of $0<z<2$, obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys DR7 catalog. We find that the number fraction of the radio-loud (RL) quasars increases above a threshold of $M_{\mathrm{BH}}\simeq 10^{9.5}{M}_{\odot }$, independent of their redshifts. Moreover, the number fraction of RL quasars with lower Eddington ratios (out of the whole RL quasars), indicating lower accretion rates, increases above the critical BH mass. These observational trends can be natural consequences of the proposed scenario of suppressing BH growth around the apparent maximum mass of $\sim 10^{10}{M}_{\odot }$. The ongoing VLA Sky Survey in radio will allow us to estimate of the exact number fraction of RL quasars more precisely, which gives further insights to understand quenching processes for BH growth.

5 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJL. Minor changes made to match accepted version in ApJL

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