Black hole mass, jet power, and accretion in AGNs

Journal Article · Wed Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2015 · The Astronomical Journal (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/150/1/8· OSTI ID:22879475

Chen, Yong-Yun; Zhang, Xiong; Xiong, Dingrong; Yu, Xiaoling ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming 650500 (China)

We study the relation between accretion, black hole mass, and jet power in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) using a large group of blazars detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope and radio galaxies. Our main results are as follows. (1) The jet power of flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and the FRII high-excitation galaxy (HEG) depends on the black hole mass, which suggests that the FSRQs and FRII HEG are in the radiation-pressure-dominated regime. The jet power of BL Lacs and the FRI low-excitation galaxy (LEG) depends on the accretion, which suggests that the BL Lacs and FRI LEG are in the gas-pressure-dominated regime. (2) We find that most of FSRQs and BL Lacs have P{sub jet}>L{sub BZ}{sup max}, which suggests that the Blandford–Znajek mechanism is insufficient to explain the jet power of these objects. (3) The FSRQs are roughly separated from BL Lacs by Ledlow–Owenʼs dividing line in the log P{sub jet}−logM plane, which supports the unified scheme of AGNs. (4) The FSRQs and BL Lacs have a clear division at L{sub bol}/L{sub Edd}∼0.01, and the distribution of Eddington ratios of BL Lacs and FSRQs exhibits a bimodal nature, which implies that the accretion mode of FSRQs may be different from that of BL Lacs. (5) We find a significant correlation between broad-line luminosity and jet power, which supports a direct tight connection between jet power and accretion.

• OSTI ID: 22879475
• Journal Information: The Astronomical Journal (Online), Journal Name: The Astronomical Journal (Online) Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 150; ISSN 1538-3881
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ACCRETION DISKS
BLACK HOLES
EXCITATION
GALAXY NUCLEI
LUMINOSITY
MASS
QUASARS
RADIATION PRESSURE
RADIO GALAXIES
SPECTRA
TELESCOPES