Evident black hole-bulge coevolution in the distant universe

Abstract

Observations in the local universe show a tight correlation between the masses of supermassive black holes (SMBHs; $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$) and host-galaxy bulges ($M_{\mathrm{bulge}}$), suggesting a strong connection between SMBH and bulge growth. However, direct evidence for such a connection in the distant universe remains elusive. We have studied sample-averaged SMBH accretion rate ($\overline{\mathrm{BHAR}}$) for bulge-dominated galaxies at $z=0.5-3$. While previous observations found $\overline{\mathrm{BHAR}}$ is strongly related to host-galaxy stellar mass ($M_{\star }$) for the overall galaxy population, our analyses show that, for the bulge-dominated population, $\overline{\mathrm{BHAR}}$ is mainly related to SFR rather than $M_{\star }$. This $\overline{\mathrm{BHAR}}$-SFR relation is highly significant, e.g. $9.0\sigma$ (Pearson statistic) at $z=0.5-1.5$. Such a $\overline{\mathrm{BHAR}}$-SFR connection does not exist among our comparison sample of galaxies that are not bulge-dominated, for which $M_{\star }$ appears to be the main determinant of SMBH accretion. This difference between the bulge-dominated and comparison samples indicates that SMBHs only coevolve with bulges rather than the entire galaxies, explaining the tightness of the local $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$-$M_{\mathrm{bulge}}$ correlation. Our best-fit $\overline{\mathrm{BHAR}}$-SFR relation for the bulge-dominated sample is $\log \overline{\mathrm{BHAR}}=\log \mathrm{SFR}-(2.48\pm 0.05)$ (solar units). The best-fit $\overline{\mathrm{BHAR}}/\mathrm{SFR}$ ratio ($10^{-2.48}$) for bulge-dominated galaxies is similar to the observed $M_{\mathrm{BH}}/M_{\mathrm{bulge}}$ values in the local universe. Our results reveal that SMBH and bulge growth are in lockstep, and thus non-causal scenarios of merger averaging are unlikely the origin of the $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$-$M_{\mathrm{bulge}}$ correlation. This lockstep growth also predicts that the $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$-$M_{\mathrm{bulge}}$ relation should not have strong redshift dependence.

18 Pages, 11 figures, 4 tables; MNRAS accepted

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