The relation between the mid-infrared emission and Black Hole Mass in Active Galactic Nuclei: A direct way to probe black hole growth?

Abstract

We use a large, heterogeneous sample of local active galactic nuclei (AGN) that includes Seyfert 1s, Seyfert 2s and PG quasars to investigate for the first time the relation between black hole mass (M_BH) and mid-infrared nuclear emission. We find a clear relation between M_BH and the 10 micron nuclear luminosity for these local AGNs. There are no significant differences between type 1 and type 2 objects, implying that the reprocessing of the 10 micron nuclear emission is not severely affected by geometric and optical depth effects. We also confirm that M_BH is related to the 2-10keV X-ray luminosity, but only for the Compton thin galaxies. We present a theoretical basis for these empirical relations and discuss possible reasons for the observed scatter. Our results show that rest-frame 10 micron and hard X-ray luminosities (especially the former, which is applicable to all AGN types) can be powerful tools for conducting a census of black hole masses at high redshift and for probing their cosmological evolution.

Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters

References in corpus (6)

• On the Relationship Between Radio Emission and Black Hole Mass in Galactic Nuclei
• Black Holes and Hosts of Active and Quiescent Galaxies: I. The Black Hole-Bulge Relation revisited
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• The non-stellar infrared continuum of Seyfert galaxies
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• A Vigorous Starburst in the SCUBA Galaxy N2 850.4
• Compact Nuclear Starbursts in Seyfert 2 Galaxies from the CfA and 12 Micron Samples
• Mid-infrared imaging of 25 local AGN with VLT-VISIR
• On the Relationship Between the Optical Emission-Line and X-ray Luminosities in Seyfert 1 Galaxies
• Comparison of AGN and Nuclear Starburst Activity in Seyfert 1 and 2 Galaxies over a Wide Luminosity Range Based on Near-infrared 2-4 micrometer Spectroscopy
• Cosmological Growth History of Supermassive Black Holes and Demographics in the High-z Universe : Do Lyman-Break Galaxies Have Supermassive Black Holes?
• Radio/X-Ray Luminosity Relation for X-Ray Bright Galactic Nuclei: Implications on Weighing Supermassive Black Hole