A Fundamental Relation Between Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies

2000/06/30 by Laura Ferrarese, David Merritt · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/312838

published as Astrophys.J. 539 (2000) L9 · ApJ, 539, L9. Rutgers Astrophysics Preprint Series No. 274 This version is slightly modified to fit within the ApJL page limits

arxiv created 2000/08/09 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01

Abstract

The masses of supermassive black holes correlate almost perfectly with the velocity dispersions of their host bulges, M(BH) ~ sigma^alpha, where alpha =4.8 +/- 0.5. The relation is much tighter than the relation between M(BH) and bulge luminosity, with a scatter no larger than expected on the basis of measurement error alone. Black hole masses estimated by Magorrian et al. (1998) lie systematically above the M(BH)-sigma relation defined by more accurate mass estimates, some by as much as two orders of magnitude. The tightness of the M(BH)-sigma relation implies a strong link between black hole formation and the properties of the stellar bulge.

Cited by

• Revealing massive black hole astrophysics: The potential of hierarchical inference with extreme mass-ratio inspiral observations
• Hubble Space Telescope [wikipedia]