Super-massive black hole mass scaling relations

TL;DR

This paper investigates the relationship between supermassive black hole masses and their host galaxy spheroid masses, revealing a bent distribution with different scaling relations for core-Sersic and Sersic galaxies.

Contribution

It demonstrates that galaxy-black hole mass relations are strongly bent, with distinct near-linear and near-quadratic relations for different galaxy types, based on a comprehensive mass range.

Findings

Core-Sersic galaxies follow a near-linear M_bh-M_sph relation.

Sersic galaxies follow a near-quadratic M_bh-M_sph relation.

The bent relation arises from known galaxy scaling laws, not pseudobulges.

Abstract

Using black hole masses which span 10^5 to 10^(10) solar masses, the distribution of galaxies in the (host spheroid stellar mass)-(black hole mass) diagram is shown to be strongly bent. While the core-Sersic galaxies follow a near-linear relation, having a mean M_(bh)/M_(sph) mass ratio of ~0.5%, the Sersic galaxies follow a near-quadratic relation: M_bh~M_sph^(2.22+\-0.58). This is not due to offset pseudobulges, but is instead an expected result arising from the long-known bend in the M_(sph)-sigma relation and the log-linear M_(bh)-sigma relation.