On the Correlations between Galaxy Properties and Supermassive Black Hole Mass

TL;DR

This study analyzes the relationships between supermassive black hole masses and various galaxy properties, confirming the tight MBH-sigma relation and exploring the influence of galaxy type and other parameters.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of multiple galaxy parameters in relation to SMBH mass, emphasizing the dominance of velocity dispersion in the fundamental plane.

Findings

MBH-sigma relation is the tightest correlation.

No significant difference in MBH-sigma relation between barred and unbarred galaxies.

MBH correlates poorly with Sersic index and other parameters.

Abstract

We use a large sample of upper limits and accurate estimates of supermassive black holes masses coupled with libraries of host galaxy velocity dispersions, rotational velocities and photometric parameters extracted from Sloan Digital Sky Survey i-band images to establish correlations between the SMBH and host galaxy parameters. We test whether the mass of the black hole, MBH, is fundamentally driven by either local or global galaxy properties. We explore correlations between MBH and stellar velocity dispersion sigma, bulge luminosity, bulge mass Sersic index, bulge mean effective surface brightness, luminosity of the galaxy, galaxy stellar mass, maximum circular velocity Vc, galaxy dynamical and effective masses. We verify the tightness of the MBH-sigma relation and find that correlations with other galaxy parameters do not yield tighter trends. We do not find differences in the MBH-sigma relation of barred and unbarred galaxies. The MBH-sigma relation of pseudo-bulges is also coarser and has a different slope than that involving classical bulges. The MBH-bulge mass is not as tight as the MBH-sigma relation, despite the bulge mass proving to be a better proxy of MBH than bulge luminosity. We find a rather poor correlation between MBH and Sersic index suggesting that MBH is not related to the bulge light concentration. The correlations between MBH and galaxy luminosity or mass are not a marked improvement over the MBH sigma relation. If Vc is a proxy for the dark matter halo mass, the large scatter of the MBH-Vc relation then suggests that MBH is more coupled to the baryonic rather than the dark matter. We have tested the need for a third parameter in the MBH scaling relations, through various linear correlations with bulge and galaxy parameters, only to confirm that the fundamental plane of the SMBH is mainly driven by sigma, with a small tilt due to the effective radius. (Abridged)