Refining the fundamental plane of accreting black holes

Abstract

The idea of a unified description of supermassive and stellar black holes has been supported by the extension of the empirical radio/X-ray correlation from X-ray binaries to active galactic nuclei through the inclusion of a mass term. This has lead to the so-called fundamental plane of black hole activity in the black hole mass, radio and X-ray luminosity space. Two incarnations of this fundamental plane have so far been suggested using different underlying models and using two different samples of accreting black holes. We present revised samples for both studies together with a refined statistical analysis using measured errors of the observables. This method is used to compare the two samples, discuss selection effects, and infer parameters for the fundamental plane in a homogeneous way. We show that strongly sub-Eddington objects in a state equivalent to the low/hard state of X-ray binaries follow the fundamental plane very tightly; the scatter is comparable to the measurement errors. However, we find that the estimated parameters depend strongly on the assumptions made on the sources of scatter and the relative weight of the different AGN classes in the sample. Using only hard state objects, the fundamental plane is in agreement with the prediction of a simple uncooled synchrotron/jet model for the emitted radiation. Inclusion of high-state objects increases the scatter and moves the correlation closer to a disk/jet model. This is qualitatively consistent with a picture where low-state objects are largely dominated by jet emission while high-state objects have a strong contribution from an accretion disk.

Accepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (2)

• The XMM-Newton Serendipitous Survey V. Optical identification of the XMM-Newton Medium sensitivity Survey (XMS)
• Towards a population of HMXB/NS microquasars as counterparts of low-latitude unidentified EGRET sources

Cited by in corpus (19)

• A synthesis model for AGN evolution: supermassive black holes growth and feedback modes
• Measuring the kinetic power of AGN in the radio mode
• The Fundamental Plane of Accretion Onto Black Holes with Dynamical Masses
• Understanding the Very High-Energy Emission from Microquasars
• Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei: Are They UV-Faint and Radio Loud?
• Revisiting the radio/X-ray flux correlation in the black hole V404 Cyg: from outburst to quiescence
• Results from an extensive simultaneous broadband campaign on the underluminous active nucleus M81*: further evidence for mass-scaling accretion in black holes
• How to hide large scale outflows: size constraints on the jets of Sgr A*
• The variability plane of accreting compact objects
• Measuring the accretion rate and kinetic luminosity functions of supermassive black holes
• On the origin of X-ray emission in some FR Is: ADAF or jet?
• The black hole fundamental plane: revisit with a larger sample of radio and X-ray emitting broad-line AGNs
• Tracing the jet contribution to the mid-IR over the 2005 outburst of GRO J1655-40 via broadband spectral modeling
• Radio observations of NGC 2808 and other globular clusters: constraints on intermediate mass black holes
• The variable radio counterpart and possible large-scale jet of the new Z-source XTE J1701-462
• Large-scale radio nebula around the Ultra-Luminous X-ray Source IC 342 X-1
• Constraints on black hole accretion in V Puppis
• Jet-dominated advective systems of all mass scales
• A link between radio loudness and X-ray/optical properties of AGN