The Spitzer/IRAC view of black hole - bulge scaling relations

TL;DR

This study uses mid-infrared imaging to analyze the relationships between supermassive black hole masses and host galaxy bulge properties, providing refined scaling relations and insights into galaxy evolution.

Contribution

It presents a detailed mid-IR analysis of black hole-bulge scaling relations, including a new calibration of stellar mass and the role of pseudobulges, expanding previous optical studies.

Findings

Strong correlation between MBH and bulge luminosity at 3.6 um.

MBH is tightly linked to bulge dynamical mass (~0.1 dex scatter).

Pseudobulges mostly follow the same scaling relations as classical bulges.

Abstract

We present a mid-IR investigation of the scaling relations between supermassive black hole masses (MBH) and the structural parameters of the host spheroids in local galaxies. The work is based on two-dimensional bulge-disk decompositions of Spitzer/IRAC 3.6 um images of 57 galaxies with MBH estimates. Our estimates of effective radii (Re) and surface brightnesses, combined with velocity dispersions (sigma) from the literature, define a FP relation consistent with previous determinations but doubling the observed range in Re. None of our galaxies is an outlier of the FP, demonstrating the accuracy of our bulge-disk decomposition which also allows us to independently identify pseudobulges in our sample. We calibrate M/L at 3.6 um by using the tight Mdyn-Lbul relation (~0.1 dex of rms) and find that no color corrections are required to estimate the stellar mass. The 3.6 um luminosity is thus the best tracer of Mstar yet studied. We then explore the connection between MBH and bulge structural parameters (luminosity, mass, effective radius). We find tight correlations of MBH with both 3.6 um bulge luminosity and dynamical mass (MBH/Mdyn~1/1000), with rms of ~0.35 dex, similar to the MBH-sigma relation. Our results are consistent with previous determinations at shorter wavelengths. By using our calibrated M/L, we rescale MBH-Lbul to obtain the MBH-Mstar relation, which can be used as the local reference for high-z studies which probe the cosmic evolution of MBH-galaxy relations and where the stellar mass is inferred directly from luminosity measurements. The analysis of pseudobulges shows that 4 out of 9 lie on the scaling relations within the observed scatter, while those with small MBH are significantly displaced. We explore the different origins for such behavior, while considering the possibility of nuclear morphological components not reproduced by our two-dimensional decomposition.