The fraction of galaxies that contain active nuclei and their accretion rates

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between the present day optical luminosity function of galaxies and the X-ray luminosity function of Seyfert 1s to determine the fraction of galaxies which host Seyfert 1 nuclei and their Eddington ratios. The local type 1 AGN X-ray luminosity function is well reproduced if ~ 1% of all galaxies are type 1 Seyferts which have Eddington ratios of ~ 10^{-3}. However, in such a model the X-ray luminosity function is completely dominated by AGN in E and S0 galaxies, contrary to the observed mix of Seyfert host galaxies. To obtain a plausible mix of AGN host galaxy morphologies requires that the most massive black holes in E and S0 galaxies accrete with lower Eddington ratios, or have a lower incidence of Seyfert activity, than the central black holes of later type galaxies.

6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (5)

• A Unified Model for the Evolution of Galaxies and Quasars
• The obscured growth of massive black holes
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Spectral Types and Luminosity Functions
• An improved method of constructing binned luminosity functions
• Joint Cosmological Formation of QSOs and Bulge-dominated Galaxies

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• X-ray spectra of sources in the 13H XMM-Newton / Chandra deep field
• Evidence for a Truncated Accretion Disc in the Low Luminosity Seyfert Galaxy, NGC 7213?
• The Quasar Candidates Catalogs of DESI Legacy Imaging Survey Data Release 9