Black Hole Growth Is Mainly Linked to Host-galaxy Stellar Mass Rather Than Star Formation Rate

Journal Article · Tue Jun 20 04:00:00 EDT 2017 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/AA7564· OSTI ID:22876118

Yang, G.; Chen, C.-T. J.; Vito, F.; Brandt, W. N.; Schneider, D. P. ^[1]; Alexander, D. M. ^[2]; Luo, B. ^[3]; Sun, M. Y.; Xue, Y. Q.; Liu, T.; Wang, J. -X. ^[4]; Bauer, F. E. ^[5]; Koekemoer, A. M. ^[6]; Lehmer, B. D. ^[7]; Shemmer, O. ^[8]; Trump, J. R. ^[9]

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1. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
2. Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Department of Physics, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE (United Kingdom)
3. School of Astronomy and Space Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093 (China)
4. CAS Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, Center for Astrophysics, Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (China)
5. Instituto de Astrofísica and Centro de Astroingeniería, Facultad de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Casilla 306, Santiago 22 (Chile)
6. Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
7. Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, 226 Physics Building, 835 West Dickinson Street, Fayetteville, AR 72701 (United States)
8. Department of Physics, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203 (United States)
9. Department of Physics, 2152 Hillside Road, U-3046, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269 (United States)

We investigate the dependence of black hole accretion rate (BHAR) on host-galaxy star formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass (M {sub *}) in the CANDELS/GOODS-South field in the redshift range of 0.5⩽z<2.0. Our sample consists of ≈18,000 galaxies, allowing us to probe galaxies with 0.1M{sub ⊙}yr{sup −1}≲SFR≲100 M{sub ⊙} yr{sup −1} and/or 10{sup 8}M{sub ⊙}≲M{sub ∗}≲10{sup 11} M{sub ⊙}. We use sample-mean BHAR to approximate long-term average BHAR. Our sample-mean BHARs are derived from the Chandra Deep Field-South 7 Ms observations, while the SFRs and M {sub *} have been estimated by the CANDELS team through spectral energy distribution fitting. The average BHAR is correlated positively with both SFR and M {sub *}, and the BHAR–SFR and BHAR–M {sub *} relations can both be described acceptably by linear models with a slope of unity. However, BHAR appears to be correlated more strongly with M {sub *} than SFR. This result indicates that M {sub *} is the primary host-galaxy property related to supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth, and the apparent BHAR–SFR relation is largely a secondary effect due to the star-forming main sequence. Among our sources, massive galaxies (M{sub ∗}≳10{sup 10}M{sub ⊙}) have significantly higher BHAR/SFR ratios than less massive galaxies, indicating that the former have higher SMBH fueling efficiency and/or higher SMBH occupation fraction than the latter. Our results can naturally explain the observed proportionality between M{sub BH} and M {sub *} for local giant ellipticals and suggest that their M{sub BH}/M{sub ∗} is higher than that of local star-forming galaxies. Among local star-forming galaxies, massive systems might have higher M{sub BH}/M{sub ∗} compared to dwarfs.

• OSTI ID: 22876118
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 842; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
BLACK HOLES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
ENERGY SPECTRA
GALACTIC EVOLUTION
GALAXY NUCLEI
MASS
QUASARS
RED SHIFT
STARS
X-RAY GALAXIES