Accretion and nuclear activity in Virgo early-type galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses Chandra data to measure low accretion rates of hot gas onto supermassive black holes in Virgo early-type galaxies, confirming hot gas's role in powering radio-loud AGN across a wide luminosity range.

Contribution

It provides new measurements of accretion rates in low-luminosity galaxies and extends the accretion-jet power relation to less active systems.

Findings

Accretion rates are extremely low, 0.2 - 3.7 x 10^-3 solar masses per year.

Accretion-jet power relation extends to low-luminosity, radio-quiet galaxies.

A trend between jet power and galaxy location within the cluster is suggested.

Abstract

We use Chandra observations to estimate the accretion rate of hot gas onto the central supermassive black hole in four giant (of stellar mass 10E11 - 10E12 solar masses) early-type galaxies located in the Virgo cluster. They are characterized by an extremely low radio luminosity, in the range L < 3E25 - 10E27 erg/s/Hz. We find that, accordingly, accretion in these objects occurs at an extremely low rate, 0.2 - 3.7 10E-3 solar masses per year, and that they smoothly extend the relation accretion - jet power found for more powerful radio-galaxies. This confirms the dominant role of hot gas and of the galactic coronae in powering radio-loud active galactic nuclei across ~ 4 orders of magnitude in luminosity. A suggestive trend between jet power and location within the cluster also emerges.