The M_BH_-{sigma} relation for active galaxies

DOI

We create a baseline of the black hole (BH) mass (M_BH_)-stellar-velocity dispersion ({sigma}) relation for active galaxies, using a sample of 66 local (0.02<z<0.09) Seyfert-1 galaxies, selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Analysis of SDSS images yields AGN luminosities free of host-galaxy contamination, and morphological classification. 51/66 galaxies have spiral morphology. Out of these, 28 bulges have Sersic index n<2 and are considered candidate pseudo-bulges, with eight being definite pseudo-bulges based on multiple classification criteria met. Only 4/66 galaxies show signs of interaction/merging. High signal-to-noise ratio Keck spectra provide the width of the broad H{beta} emission line free of Fe II emission and stellar absorption. AGN luminosity and H{beta} line widths are used to estimate M_BH_. The Keck-based spatially resolved kinematics is used to determine stellar-velocity dispersion within the spheroid effective radius ({sigma}spat,reff). We find that {sigma} can vary on average by up to 40% across definitions commonly used in the literature, emphasizing the importance of using self-consistent definitions in comparisons and evolutionary studies. The M_BH_-{sigma} relation for our Seyfert-1 galaxy sample has the same intercept and scatter as that of reverberation-mapped AGNs as well as that of quiescent galaxies, consistent with the hypothesis that our single epoch M_BH_ estimator and sample selection function do not introduce significant biases. Barred galaxies, merging galaxies, and those hosting pseudo-bulges do not represent outliers in the M_BH_-{sigma} relation. This is in contrast with previous work, although no firm conclusion can be drawn on this matter due to the small sample size and limited resolution of the SDSS images.

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Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.18090020
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/809/20
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/809/20
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/809/20
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/809/20
Provenance
Creator Bennert V.N.; Treu T.; Auger M.W.; Cosens M.; Park D.; Rosen R.,Harris C.E.; Malkan M.A.; Woo J.-H.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2017
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Cosmology; Galactic and extragalactic Astronomy; High Energy Astrophysics; Interdisciplinary Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics