Identification of Intermediate-mass Black Hole Candidates Among a Sample of Sd Galaxies

Abstract

We analyzed images of every northern hemisphere Sd galaxy listed in the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (RC3) with a relatively face-on inclination ($\theta \le 30°$). Specifically, we measured the spiral arms' winding angle, $\varphi$, in 85 galaxies. We applied a novel black hole mass planar scaling relation involving the rotational velocities (from the literature) and pitch angles of each galaxy to predict central black hole masses. This yielded 23 galaxies, each having at least a 50% chance of hosting a central intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH), $10^2<M_{\mathrm{BH}}\le 10^5{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$. These 23 nearby ($\lesssim$50 Mpc) targets may be suitable for an array of follow-up observations to check for active nuclei. Based on our full sample of 85 Sd galaxies, we estimate that the typical Sd galaxy (which tends to be bulgeless) harbors a black hole with $\log (M_{\mathrm{BH}}/{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot })=6.00\pm 0.14$, but with a 27.7% chance of hosting an IMBH, making this morphological type of galaxy fertile ground for hunting elusive IMBHs. Thus, we find that a $\sim$$10^6{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ black hole corresponds roughly to the onset of bulge development and serves as a conspicuous waypoint along the galaxy-SMBH coevolution journey. Our survey suggests that $>$1.22% of bright galaxies ($B_{\mathrm{T}}\lesssim 15.5$ mag) in the local Universe host an IMBH (i.e., the "occupation fraction"), which implies a number density $>$$4.96\times 10^{-6}$ Mpc${}^{-3}$ for central IMBHs. Finally, we observe that Sd galaxies exhibit an unexpected diversity of properties that resemble the general population of spiral galaxies, albeit with an enhanced signature of the eponymous prototypical traits (i.e., low masses, loosely wound spiral arms, and smaller rotational velocities).

Unedited manuscript (30 pages, 5 figures, and 1 table) accepted by The Astrophysical Journal on June 7, 2024

References in corpus (144)

• Array Programming with NumPy
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
• Advanced LIGO
• The Host Galaxies and Classification of Active Galactic Nuclei
• The James Webb Space Telescope
• First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way
• A luminous quasar at a redshift of z = 7.085
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Distribution since $z=3$
• LIGO: The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory
• HyperLEDA. III. The catalogue of extragalactic distances
• Formation of Supermassive Black Holes by Direct Collapse in Pregalactic Halos
• An ultra-luminous quasar with a twelve-billion-solar-mass black hole at redshift 6.30
• Intermediate and Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals -- Astrophysics, Science Applications and Detection using LISA
• Detection of the Schwarzschild precession in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole
• Supermassive black hole formation during the assembly of pre-galactic discs
• The bulk of the black hole growth since z~1 occurs in a secular universe: No major merger-AGN connection
• The Pan-STARRS1 distant z>5.6 quasar survey: more than 100 quasars within the first Gyr of the universe
• A Classical Morphological Analysis of Galaxies in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G)
• The evolution of massive black hole seeds
• An Improved Distance and Mass Estimate for Sgr A* from a Multistar Orbit Analysis
• Observational evidence for intermediate-mass black holes
• Dawes Review 4: Spiral Structures in Disc Galaxies
• Four quasars above redshift 6 discovered by the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey
• Super-Critical Growth of Massive Black Holes from Stellar-Mass Seeds
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Data Release 4 and the z < 0.1 total and z < 0.08 morphological galaxy stellar mass functions
• An actively accreting massive black hole in the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10
• A 400 solar mass black hole in the Ultraluminous X-ray source M82 X-1 accreting close to its Eddington limit
• JWST CEERS & JADES Active Galaxies at z = 4-7 Violate the Local $M_{\bullet }-M_{\star }$ Relation at $>3\sigma$: Implications for Low-Mass Black Holes and Seeding Models
• Properties of Bars and Bulges in the Hubble Sequence
• Galaxy Interactions Trigger Rapid Black Hole Growth: an unprecedented view from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey
• Virgo cluster early-type dwarf galaxies with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. On the possible disk nature of bright early-type dwarfs
• Merging and Clustering of the Swift BAT AGN Sample
• From Supermassive Black Holes to Dwarf Elliptical Nuclei: a Mass Continuum
• Nuclear star clusters in 228 spiral galaxies in the HST/WFPC2 archive: catalogue and comparison to other stellar systems
• The Evolution of Supermassive Population III Stars
• Initial mass function of intermediate mass black hole seeds
• Feedback-regulated Super Massive Black Hole Seed Formation
• Improved Dynamical Constraints on the Masses of the Central Black Holes in Nearby Low-mass Early-type Galactic Nuclei And the First Black Hole Determination for NGC 205
• A characteristic optical variability timescale in astrophysical accretion disks
• X-ray constraints on the local supermassive black hole occupation fraction
• Constraining the high redshift formation of black hole seeds in nuclear star clusters with gas inflows
• The erratic dynamical life of black hole seeds in high-redshift galaxies
• Diagnostics for PopIII galaxies and Direct Collapse Black Holes in the early universe
• Very high redshift quasars and the rapid emergence of super-massive black holes
• Action Dynamics of the Local Supercluster
• The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey. X. Nuclear star clusters in low-mass early-type galaxies: scaling relations
• Black Hole Mass Scaling Relations for Early-Type Galaxies: $M_{BH}$-$M_{\ast ,sph}$ and $M_{BH}$-$M_{\ast ,gal}$
• GW190521 may be an intermediate mass ratio inspiral
• Hidden AGN in dwarf galaxies revealed by MaNGA: light echoes, off-nuclear wanderers, and a new broad-line AGN
• Incidence of WISE-Selected Obscured AGNs in Major Mergers and Interactions from the SDSS
• Direct collapse black hole formation from synchronized pairs of atomic cooling halos
• The Final Fates of Accreting Supermassive Stars
• Updated Mass Scaling Relations for Nuclear Star Clusters and a Comparison to Supermassive Black Holes
• Repeated mergers and ejection of black holes within nuclear star clusters
• The Subaru high-z quasar survey: discovery of faint z~6 quasars
• The powerful jet of an off-nuclear intermediate-mass black hole in the spiral galaxy NGC 2276
• The low-end of the black hole mass function at cosmic dawn
• Cosmicflows-3: Two Distance$-$Velocity Calculators
• Discovery of a relationship between spiral arm morphology and supermassive black hole mass in disk galaxies
• Galaxies hosting an AGN: a view from the CALIFA survey
• The peculiar velocity field up to $z\sim 0.05$ by forward-modeling Cosmicflows-3 data
• Hunting for Massive Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies
• Constraining dark matter halo profiles and galaxy formation models using spiral arm morphology. I. Method outline
• Origins and Demographics of Wandering Black Holes
• Evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole from a gravitationally lensed gamma-ray burst
• Intermediate-mass black holes in colliding clusters: Implications for lower-frequency gravitational-wave astronomy
• Correlation between Galaxy Mergers and Luminous AGN
• A Milky Way-like barred spiral galaxy at a redshift of 3
• Light, medium-weight or heavy? The nature of the first supermassive black hole seeds
• RCSED - A Value-Added Reference Catalog of Spectral Energy Distributions of 800,299 Galaxies in 11 Ultraviolet, Optical, and Near-Infrared Bands: Morphologies, Colors, Ionized Gas and Stellar Populations Properties
• On the Rotation of Supermassive Stars
• The fundamental signature of star formation quenching from AGN feedback: A critical dependence of quiescence on supermassive black hole mass not accretion rate
• SDSS J160531.84+174826.1: A Dwarf Disk Galaxy With An Intermediate-Mass Black Hole
• Galaxy Zoo and SpArcFiRe: Constraints on spiral arm formation mechanisms from spiral arm number and pitch angles
• The Image of the M87 Black Hole Reconstructed with PRIMO
• Spiral structure in nearby galaxies II. comparative analysis and conclusions
• Galaxy Zoo: Unwinding the Winding Problem - Observations of Spiral Bulge Prominence and Arm Pitch Angles Suggest Local Spiral Galaxies are Winding
• The ultra-luminous X-ray source in M82: an intermediate mass black hole with a giant companion
• Millimetre-wave Emission from an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Candidate in the Milky Way
• Galactic angular momentum in the IllustrisTNG simulation -- I. Connection to morphology, halo spin, and black hole mass
• Tidal disruption of a star in the Schwarzschild spacetime: relativistic effects in the return rate of debris
• Radio AGN in nearby dwarf galaxies: the important role of AGN in dwarf-galaxy evolution
• The Incidence of X-ray selected AGN in Nearby Galaxies
• Chandra and Swift Follow-up Observations of the Intermediate Mass Black Hole in ESO243-49
• Strong Evidence for the Density-wave Theory of Spiral Structure in Disk Galaxies
• Indication of Another Intermediate-mass Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• Black hole triggered star formation in the dwarf galaxy Henize 2-10
• A multi-wavelength study of spiral structure in galaxies. I. General characteristics in the optical
• Gravitational wave of intermediate-mass black holes in Population III star clusters
• Morphological signatures of mergers in the TNG50 simulation and the Kilo-Degree Survey: the merger fraction from dwarfs to Milky Way-like galaxies
• A galaxy classification grid that better recognises early-type galaxy morphology
• Spiral Structure Boosts Star Formation in Disk Galaxies
• The Second Galactic Center Black Hole?; A Possible Detection of Ionized Gas Orbiting around an IMBH embedded in the Galactic Center IRS13E complex
• Hundreds of Low-Mass Active Galaxies in the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) Survey
• Defining the (Black Hole)-Spheroid Connection with the Discovery of Morphology-Dependent Substructure in the $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--${\mathrm{n}}_{\mathrm{sph}}$ and $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--${\mathrm{R}}_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{sph}}$ Diagrams: New Tests for Advanced Theories and Realistic Simulations
• The local black hole mass function derived from the M_{BH}-P and the M_{BH}-n relations
• The Fifth Candidate for an Intermediate-mass Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• Was 49b: An Overmassive AGN in a Merging Dwarf Galaxy?
• Kiloparsec-scale AGN Outflows and Feedback in Merger-Free Galaxies
• EMPRESS. VII. Ionizing Spectrum Shapes of Extremely Metal-Poor Galaxies: Uncovering the Origins of Strong HeII and the Impact on Cosmic Reionization
• Expected intermediate-mass black holes in the Virgo cluster. I. Early-type galaxies
• Intermediate-mass black holes and the fundamental plane of black hole accretion
• Unveiling hidden active nuclei in MaNGA star-forming galaxies with HeII$\lambda$4686 line emission
• On the impact of relativistic gravity on the rate of tidal disruption events
• The Blackhole-Dark Matter Halo Connection
• Investigating the Origins of Spiral Structure in Disk Galaxies through a Multiwavelength Study
• A search for active galactic nuclei in low-mass compact galaxies
• Extremely efficient mergers of intermediate mass black hole binaries in nucleated dwarf galaxies
• The evolution of pitch angles of spiral arms
• Constraining dark matter halo profiles and galaxy formation models using spiral arm morphology. II. Dark and stellar mass concentrations for 13 nearby face-on galaxies
• The (black hole mass)-(color) relations for early- and late-type galaxies: red and blue sequences
• Do ultra compact dwarf galaxies form monolithically or as merged star cluster complexes?
• CLASS: Coronal Line Activity Spectroscopic Survey
• Dynamics of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Wandering in the Milky Way Galaxy Using the Illustris TNG50 Simulation
• A luminous dust-obscured Tidal Disruption Event candidate in a star forming galaxy at 42 Mpc
• A consistency-test for determining whether ultra-compact dwarf galaxies could be the remnant nuclei of threshed galaxies
• Resequencing the Hubble sequence and the quadratic (black hole mass)-(spheroid stellar mass) relation for elliptical galaxies
• A Chandra Virgo cluster survey of spiral galaxies. I. Introduction to the survey and a new ULX sample
• Intermediate-mass black holes: finding of episodic, large-scale and powerful jet activity in a dwarf galaxy
• The unusual radio transient in M82: an SS 433 analogue?
• An Accreting, Anomalously Low Mass Black Hole at the Center of Low Mass Galaxy IC 750
• Potential Black Hole Seeding of the Spiral Galaxy NGC 4424 via an Infalling Star Cluster
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: The Incidence of Major Mergers in type I and II AGN Host Galaxies in the DR15 sample
• Splitting the lentils: Clues to galaxy/black hole coevolution from the discovery of offset relations for non-dusty versus dusty (wet-merger-built) lenticular galaxies in the $M_{\mathrm{bh}}$-$M_{\ast ,\mathrm{spheroid}}$ diagram
• Ionized Gas Kinematics around an Ultra-luminous X-ray Source in NGC 5252 : Additional Evidence for an Off-nuclear AGN
• Towards a More Complete Optical Census of Active Galactic Nuclei, Via Spatially-Resolved Spectroscopy
• The Discovery of a Hidden Broad Line AGN in a Bulgeless Galaxy: Keck NIR Spectroscopic Observations of SDSS J085153.64+392611.76
• Dynamical signature of a stellar bulge in a quasar host galaxy at $z\simeq 6$
• An Ultraluminous Supersoft Source in a Dwarf Galaxy of Abell 85: An Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Candidate
• Stellar Properties of the Host Galaxy of an Ultraluminous X-ray Source in NGC 5252
• Parameterizing the Outflow from a Central Black Hole in Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies: A 3D Hydrodynamic Simulation
• Central X-ray point-sources found to be abundant in low-mass, late-type galaxies predicted to contain an intermediate-mass black hole
• Multiwavelength Bulge-Disk Decomposition for the Galaxy M81 (NGC 3031). I. Morphology
• Discovery of a Planar Black Hole Mass Scaling Relation for Spiral Galaxies
• Premerger localization of intermediate mass binary black holes with LISA and prospects of joint observations with Athena and LSST
• Over-massive Central Black Holes in the Cosmological Simulations ASTRID and Illustris TNG50
• Assessing indirect methods to determine black hole masses using NGC 4151
• Using an Assumption about the Monotony of Spiral Arms to Determine the Orientation Angles of Galaxies
• Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion on to black hole accretion disks with super-Eddington luminosity for dusty gas
• Dynamics of intermediate mass black holes in globular clusters. Wander radius and anisotropy profiles
• Probing the Low-mass End of the Black Hole Mass Function via a Study of Faint Local Spiral Galaxies
• A reference sample of face-on bulgeless galaxies
• The luminosity function of TDEs from fallback-powered emission: implications for the black hole mass function
• Study of central light distribution in nearby early-type galaxies hosting nuclear star clusters