The black hole mass - stellar velocity dispersion relation of narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies

TL;DR

This study examines the black hole mass - stellar velocity dispersion relation in narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies, finding no significant deviation from the established relation and highlighting the influence of host galaxy morphology on measurements.

Contribution

It provides the first direct measurement of the M-sigma relation in NLS1s and refines the virial factor for black hole mass estimation.

Findings

NLS1s do not significantly deviate from the M-sigma relation.

Host galaxy inclination affects stellar velocity dispersion measurements.

Derived virial factor log f = 0.05 ± 0.12 for black hole mass estimators.

Abstract

Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) are arguably one of the key AGN subclasses in investigating the origin of the black hole mass - stellar velocity dispersion (M-sigma) relation because of their high accretion rate and significantly low black hole mass. Currently, it is under discussion whether present-day NLS1s offset from the M-sigma relation. Using the directly measured stellar velocity dispersion of 93 NLS1s at z<0.1, and black hole mass estimates based on the updated mass estimators, we investigate the M-sigma relation of NLS1s in comparison with broad-line AGNs. We find no strong evidence that the NLS1s deviates from the M-sigma relation, which is defined by reverberation-mapped type 1 AGNs and quiescent galaxies. However, there is a clear trend of the offset with the host galaxy morphology, i.e., more inclined galaxies toward the line-of-sight have higher stellar velocity dispersion, suggesting that the rotational broadening plays a role in measuring stellar velocity dispersion based on the single-aperture spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. In addition, we provide the virial factor log f = $0.05 \pm 0.12$ (f = 1.12), for black hole mass estimators based on the FWHM of H$\beta$, by jointly fitting the M-sigma relation using quiescent galaxies and reverberation-mapped AGNs.