An Eddington ratio-driven origin for the ${\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{X}}-{\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$ relation in quiescent and star forming active galaxies

Abstract

A mild correlation exists in active galaxies between the mean black hole accretion, as traced by the mean X-ray luminosity $⟨{\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{X}}⟩$, and the host galaxy stellar mass M${}_{\ast }$, characterised by a normalisation steadily decreasing with cosmic time and lower in more quiescent galaxies. We create comprehensive semi-empirical mock catalogues of active black holes to pin down which parameters control the shape and evolution of the $⟨{\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{X}}⟩-{\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$ relation of X-ray detected active galaxies. We find that the normalisation of the $⟨{\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{X}}⟩-{\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$ relation is largely independent of the fraction of active galaxies (the duty cycle), but strongly dependent on the mean Eddington ratio, when adopting a constant underlying M${}_{\mathrm{BH}}-{\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$ relation as suggested by observational studies. The data point to a decreasing mean Eddington ratio with cosmic time and with galaxy stellar mass at fixed redshift. Our data can be reproduced by black holes and galaxies evolving on similar M${}_{\mathrm{BH}}-{\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$ relations but progressively decreasing their average Eddington ratios, mean X-ray luminosities, and specific star formation rates, when moving from the starburst to the quiescent phase. Models consistent with the observed $⟨{\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{X}}⟩-{\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$ relation and independent measurements of the mean Eddington ratios, are characterised by M${}_{\mathrm{BH}}-{\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$ relations lower than those derived from dynamically measured local black holes. Our results point to the $⟨{\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{X}}⟩-{\mathrm{M}}_{\ast }$ relation as a powerful diagnostic to: 1) probe black hole-galaxy scaling relations and the level of accretion onto black holes; 2) efficiently break the degeneracies between duty cycles and accretion rates in cosmological models of black holes.

Accepted for publication on MNRAS. 11 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (22)

• Array Programming with NumPy
• The Herschel view of the dominant mode of galaxy growth from z=4 to the present day
• Toward the Standard Population Synthesis Model of the X-Ray Background: Evolution of X-Ray Luminosity and Absorption Functions of Active Galactic Nuclei Including Compton-Thick Populations
• Cosmic X-ray Surveys of Distant Active Galaxies: The Demographics, Physics, and Ecology of Growing Supermassive Black Holes
• No significant evolution of relations between Black hole mass and Galaxy total stellar mass up to z~2.5
• Black Hole Mass Scaling Relations for Early-Type Galaxies: $M_{BH}$-$M_{\ast ,sph}$ and $M_{BH}$-$M_{\ast ,gal}$
• Detailed Shape and Evolutionary Behavior of the X-ray Luminosity Function of Active Galactic Nuclei
• The cosmic growth of the active black hole population at 1<z<2 in zCOSMOS, VVDS and SDSS
• Black hole scaling relations of active and quiescent galaxies: Addressing selection effects and constraining virial factors
• Black-Hole Growth is Mainly Linked to Host-Galaxy Stellar Mass rather than Star Formation Rate
• Mapping the average AGN accretion rate in the SFR-M* plane for Herschel selected galaxies at 0<z<2.5
• Relationship between star formation rate and black hole accretion at z=2: The different contributions in quiescent, normal and starburst galaxies
• Active Galactic Nuclei and their Large-scale Structure: an eROSITA mock catalogue
• The growth of the nuclear black holes in submillimeter galaxies
• Probing black hole accretion tracks, scaling relations and radiative efficiencies from stacked X-ray active galactic nuclei
• The Dependence of AGN Activity on Environment in SDSS
• Co-evolution of black hole accretion and star formation in galaxies up to z=3.5
• Building robust AGN mock catalogs to unveil black hole evolution and for survey planning
• The Chandra COSMOS Legacy Survey: clustering dependence of Type 2 AGN on host galaxy properties
• The galaxy's gas content regulated by the dark matter halo mass results in a super-linear M${}_{\mathrm{BH}}$-M${}_{\star }$ relation
• The weak dependence of velocity dispersion on disk fractions, mass-to-light ratio and redshift: Implications for galaxy and black hole evolution
• The role of scatter and satellites in shaping the large-scale clustering of X-ray AGN as a function of host galaxy stellar mass

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Testing the evolutionary pathways of galaxies and their supermassive black holes and the impact of feedback from Active Galactic Nuclei via large multiwavelength datasets
• The Black Hole Mass Function Across Cosmic Times II. Heavy Seeds and (Super)Massive Black Holes
• The spatial clustering of ROSAT all-sky survey Active Galactic Nuclei: V. The evolution of broad-line AGN clustering properties in the last 6 Gyr