Black-hole masses of type 1 AGN in the XMM-Newton bright serendipitous survey

TL;DR

This study estimates supermassive black hole masses and accretion rates for 154 X-ray-selected type 1 AGN using single-epoch spectral relations and SED fitting, revealing a wide range of masses and accretion behaviors.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of SMBH masses and accretion rates in a well-defined X-ray-selected AGN sample using updated methods.

Findings

Black hole masses range from 10^7 to 10^10 solar masses.

Accretion rates vary from 0.01 to 50 solar masses per year.

Eddington ratios span from 0.001 to 0.5.

Abstract

We derive masses of the central super-massive black hole (SMBH) and accretion rates for 154 type1 AGN belonging to a well-defined X-ray-selected sample, the XMM-Newton Serendipitous Sample (XBS). To this end, we use the most recent "single-epoch" relations, based on Hbeta and MgII2798A emission lines, to derive the SMBH masses. We then use the bolometric luminosities, computed on the basis of an SED-fitting procedure, to calculate the accretion rates, both absolute and normalized to the Eddington luminosity (Eddington ratio). The selected AGNs cover a range of masses from 10^7 to 10^10 Msun with a peak around 8x10^8 Msun and a range of accretion rates from 0.01 to ~50 Msun/year (assuming an efficiency of 0.1), with a peak at ~1 Msun/year. The values of Eddington ratio range from 0.001 to ~0.5 and peak at 0.1.