A Breakdown of the Black Hole–Bulge Mass Relation in Local Active Galaxies

We investigate the relation between black hole (BH) mass and bulge stellar mass for a sample of 117 local (z ∼ 0) galaxies hosting low-luminosity, broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Our sample comes from Reines & Volonteri, who found that, for a given total stellar mass, these AGNs have B...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2024-08, Vol.971 (2), p.173
Main Authors: Sturm, Megan R., Reines, Amy E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Active galactic nuclei
Active galaxies
Black holes
Galaxies
Galaxy bulges
Gravitational waves
Luminosity
Scaling relations
Seyfert galaxies
Stellar mass
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We investigate the relation between black hole (BH) mass and bulge stellar mass for a sample of 117 local (z ∼ 0) galaxies hosting low-luminosity, broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Our sample comes from Reines & Volonteri, who found that, for a given total stellar mass, these AGNs have BH masses more than an order of magnitude smaller than those in early-type galaxies with quiescent BHs. Here, we aim to determine whether or not this AGN sample falls on the canonical BH-to-bulge mass relation by utilizing bulge–disk decompositions and determining bulge stellar masses using color-dependent mass-to-light ratios. We find that our AGN sample remains offset by more than an order of magnitude from the MBH–Mbulge relation defined by early-type galaxies with dynamically detected BHs. We caution that using canonical BH-to-bulge mass relations for galaxies other than ellipticals and bulge-dominated systems may lead to highly biased interpretations. This work bears directly on predictions for gravitational-wave detections and cosmological simulations that are tied to the local BH-to-bulge mass relations.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/ad55e6