THE LICK AGN MONITORING PROJECT: THE M {sub BH}-{sigma}{sub *} RELATION FOR REVERBERATION-MAPPED ACTIVE GALAXIES
- Astronomy Program, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742 (Korea, Republic of)
- Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-4575 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, and Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521 (United States)
- Lick Observatory, P.O. Box 85, Mount Hamilton, CA 95140 (United States)
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
- Department of Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024 (United States)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, MS 169-527, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States)
- Institute of Astronomy, School of Science, University of Tokyo, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0015 (Japan)
To investigate the black hole mass versus stellar velocity dispersion (M {sub BH}-{sigma}{sub *}) relation of active galaxies, we measured the velocity dispersions of a sample of local Seyfert 1 galaxies, for which we have recently determined black hole masses using reverberation mapping. For most objects, stellar velocity dispersions were measured from high signal-to-noise ratio optical spectra centered on the Ca II triplet region ({approx}8500 A), obtained at the Keck, Palomar, and Lick Observatories. For two objects, in which the Ca II triplet region was contaminated by nuclear emission, the measurement was based on high-quality H-band spectra obtained with the OH-Suppressing Infrared Imaging Spectrograph at the Keck-II telescope. Combining our new measurements with data from the literature, we assemble a sample of 24 active galaxies with stellar velocity dispersions and reverberation-based black hole mass measurements in the range of black hole mass 10{sup 6} < M {sub BH}/M {sub sun} < 10{sup 9}. We use this sample to obtain reverberation-mapping constraints on the slope and intrinsic scatter of the M {sub BH}-{sigma}{sub *} relation of active galaxies. Assuming a constant virial coefficient f for the reverberation-mapping black hole masses, we find a slope {beta} = 3.55 {+-} 0.60 and the intrinsic scatter {sigma}{sub int} = 0.43 {+-} 0.08 dex in the relation log(M {sub BH}/M {sub sun}) = {alpha} + {beta} log({sigma}{sub *}/200 km s{sup -1}), which are consistent with those found for quiescent galaxies. We derive an updated value of the virial coefficient f by finding the value which places the reverberation masses in best agreement with the M {sub BH}-{sigma}{sub *} relation of quiescent galaxies; using the quiescent M {sub BH}-{sigma}{sub *} relation determined by Gueltekin et al., we find log f = 0.72{sup +0.09} {sub -0.10} with an intrinsic scatter of 0.44 {+-} 0.07 dex. No strong correlations between f and parameters connected to the physics of accretion (such as the Eddington ratio or line-shape measurements) are found. The uncertainty of the virial coefficient remains one of the main sources of the uncertainty in black hole mass determinations using reverberation mapping, and therefore also in single-epoch spectroscopic estimates of black hole masses in active galaxies.
- OSTI ID:
- 21450862
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 716, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/716/1/269; ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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