Probing the Jet Turnover Frequency Dependence on Black Hole Mass and Mass Accretion Rate

Abstract

We have examined a sample of 13 sub-Eddington supermassive black holes hosted by galaxies spanning a variety of morphological classifications to further understand the empirical fundamental plane of black hole activity. This plane describes black holes from stellar-mass to supermassive and relates the mass of an accreting black hole and its radio and X-ray luminosities. A key factor in studying the fundamental plane is the turnover frequency, the frequency at which the radio continuum emission becomes optically thin. We measured this turnover frequency using new VLA observations combined, when necessary, with archival Chandra observations. Radio observations are in the range of 5--40 GHz across four frequency bands in B-configuration, giving high spatial resolution to focus on the core emission. We use Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods to fit the continuum emission in order to find the turnover frequency. After testing for correlations, the turnover frequency does not display a significant dependence on either mass or mass accretion rate, indicating that more complicated physics than simple scaling and optical depth effects are at play, as has been suggested by recent theoretical work.

arXiv comment10 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (37)

• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• A Fundamental Relation Between Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies
• Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• The Demography of Massive Dark Objects in Galaxy Centres
• A Relationship Between Nuclear Black Hole Mass and Galaxy Velocity Dispersion
• Advection-Dominated Accretion: A Self-Similar Solution
• On the Fate of Gas Accreting at a Low Rate onto a Black Hole
• Revisiting the Scaling Relations of Black Hole Masses and Host Galaxy Properties
• A fundamental plane of black hole activity
• The Low-Luminosity End of the Radius-Luminosity Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei
• A Scheme to Unify Low-Power Accreting Black Holes - Jet-Dominated Accretion Flows and the Radio/X-Ray Correlation
• A universal radio/X-ray correlation in low/hard state black hole binaries
• Nonthermal Electrons in Radiatively Inefficient Accretion Flow Models of Sagittarius A*
• The Radius-Luminosity Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei: The Effect of Host-Galaxy Starlight on Luminosity Measurements II. The Full Sample of Reverberation-Mapped AGNs
• Radio-Loudness of Active Galactic Nuclei: Observational Facts and Theoretical Implications
• Piecing Together the X-ray Background: Bolometric Corrections for Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Black-Hole Mass in M87 from Gemini/NIFS Adaptive Optics Observations
• Radio / X-ray correlation in the low/hard state of GX 339--4
• Convection-Dominated Accretion Flows
• Self-Similar Accretion Flows with Convection
• An Accurate Flux Density Scale from 1 to 50 GHz
• The M87 Black Hole Mass from Gas-dynamical Models of Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph Observations
• Radio Sources in Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei.IV. Radio Luminosity Function, Importance of Jet Power, and Radio Properties of the Complete Palomar Sample
• Exploring the Role of Jets in the Radio/X-ray Correlations of GX339-4
• Using the Fundamental Plane of Black Hole Activity to Distinguish X-ray Processes from Weakly Accreting Black Holes
• The Fundamental Plane of Accretion Onto Black Holes with Dynamical Masses
• The Geometry of and Mass Accretion Rate through the Maser Accretion Disk in NGC 4258
• Radiatively Inefficient Accretion: Breezes, Winds and Hyperaccretion
• Jet spectral breaks in black hole X-ray binaries
• The accretion-ejection coupling in the black hole candidate X-ray binary MAXI J1836-194
• The Origin of Radio Emission in Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei: Jets, Accretion Flows, or Both?
• Black Hole - Galaxy Scaling Relationships for Active Galactic Nuclei with Reverberation Masses
• A Stellar Dynamical Measurement of the Black Hole Mass in the Maser Galaxy NGC 4258
• On the Radial Structure of Radiatively Inefficient Accretion Flows with Convection
• On angular momentum transport in convection-dominated accretion flows
• A Chandra Survey of Supermassive Black Holes with Dynamical Mass Measurements
• A new method for extending solutions to the self-similar relativistic magnetohydrodynamics equations for black hole outflows