A CORRELATION BETWEEN STAR FORMATION RATE AND AVERAGE BLACK HOLE ACCRETION IN STAR-FORMING GALAXIES

We present a measurement of the average supermassive black hole accretion rate (BHAR) as a function of the star formation rate (SFR) for galaxies in the redshift range 0.25 < z < 0.8. We study a sample of 1767 far-IR-selected star-forming galaxies in the 9 deg super(2) Bootes multi-wavelength...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2013-08, Vol.773 (1), p.1-9
Main Authors: Chen, Chien-Ting J, Hickox, Ryan C, Alberts, Stacey, Brodwin, Mark, Jones, Christine, Murray, Stephen S, Alexander, David M, Assef, Roberto J, Brown, Michael J I, Dey, Arjun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accretion
Active galactic nuclei
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
BLACK HOLES
Black holes (astronomy)
Correlation
CORRELATIONS
Galaxies
NUCLEI
RED SHIFT
SPACE
STAR EVOLUTION
Star formation
Star formation rate
STARS
WAVELENGTHS
X RADIATION
X-RAY GALAXIES
X-rays
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Summary:We present a measurement of the average supermassive black hole accretion rate (BHAR) as a function of the star formation rate (SFR) for galaxies in the redshift range 0.25 < z < 0.8. We study a sample of 1767 far-IR-selected star-forming galaxies in the 9 deg super(2) Bootes multi-wavelength survey field. The SFR is estimated using 250 mu m observations from the Herschel Space Observatory, for which the contribution from the active galactic nucleus (AGN) is minimal. In this sample, 121 AGNs are directly identified using X-ray or mid-IR selection criteria. We combined these detected AGNs and an X-ray stacking analysis for undetected sources to study the average BHAR for all of the star-forming galaxies in our sample. We find an almost linear relation between the average BHAR (in M sub([middot in circle]) yr super(-1)) and the SFR (in M sub([middot in circle]) yr super(-1)) for galaxies across a wide SFR range 0.85 < log SFR < 2.56: log BHAR = (-3.72 + or - 0.52) + (1.05 + or - 0.33) log SFR. This global correlation between SFR and average BHAR is consistent with a simple picture in which SFR and AGN activity are tightly linked over galaxy evolution timescales.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/773/1/3