AGN Activity and Black Hole Masses in Low Surface Brightness Galaxies

TL;DR

This study investigates AGN activity and estimates black hole masses in low surface brightness galaxies, revealing that their black holes are generally smaller and offset from the typical M-sigma relation seen in brighter galaxies.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed spectroscopic analysis of AGN signatures and black hole masses in LSB galaxies, highlighting their deviation from established galaxy-black hole scaling relations.

Findings

Several LSB galaxies host AGNs with intermediate-mass black holes.

Black hole masses are lower than expected from the M-sigma relation.

LSB galaxy bulges are evolved but have under-massive black holes.

Abstract

We present medium resolution optical spectroscopy of a sample of nine Low Surface Brightness (LSB) galaxies. For those that show clear signatures of AGN emission, we have disentangled the AGN component from stellar light and any Fe I and Fe II contribution. We have decomposed the H_alpha line into narrow and broad components and determined the velocities of the broad components; typical values lie between 900--2500 km/s. Of the galaxies in our study, UGC 6614, UGC 1922, UGC 6968 and LSBC F568-6 (Malin~2) show clear signatures of AGN activity. We have calculated the approximate black hole masses for these galaxies from the H_alpha line emission using the virial approximation. The black hole masses are ~3x10^{5} M_sun for three galaxies and lie in the intermediate mass black holes domain rather than the supermassive range. UGC 6614 harbors a BH of mass 3.8x10^{6} M_sun; it also shows an interesting feature blueward of H_alpha and H_beta implying outflow of gas or a one-sided jet streaming towards us. We have also measured the bulge stellar velocity dispersions using the Ca II Triplet lines and plotted these galaxies on the M-sigma plot. We find that all the three galaxies UGC 6614, UGC 6968 and F568-6 lie below the M-sigma relation for nearby galaxies. Thus we find that although the bulges of LSB galaxies may be well evolved, their nuclear black hole masses are lower than those found in bright galaxies and lie offset from the M-sigma correlation.