Galaxy Zoo: Bulgeless Galaxies With Growing Black Holes
The growth of supermassive black holes appears to be driven by galaxy mergers, violent merger-free processes and/or `secular' processes. In order to quantify the effects of secular evolution on black hole growth, we study a sample of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in galaxies with a calm formatio...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| _version_ | 1797092212297695232 |
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| author | Simmons, B Lintott, C Schawinski, K Moran, E Han, A Kaviraj, S Masters, K Urry, C Willett, K Bamford, S Nichol, R |
| author_facet | Simmons, B Lintott, C Schawinski, K Moran, E Han, A Kaviraj, S Masters, K Urry, C Willett, K Bamford, S Nichol, R |
| author_sort | Simmons, B |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | The growth of supermassive black holes appears to be driven by galaxy mergers, violent merger-free processes and/or `secular' processes. In order to quantify the effects of secular evolution on black hole growth, we study a sample of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in galaxies with a calm formation history free of significant mergers, a population that heretofore has been difficult to locate. Here we present an initial sample of 13 AGN in massive (M_* >~ 1e10 M_sun) bulgeless galaxies -- which lack the classical bulges believed inevitably to result from mergers -- selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using visual classifications from Galaxy Zoo. Parametric morphological fitting confirms the host galaxies lack classical bulges; any contributions from pseudobulges are very small (typically < 5%). We compute black hole masses for the two broad-line objects in the sample (4.2e6 and 1.2e7 M_sun) and place lower limits on black hole masses for the remaining sample (typically M_BH >~ 1e6 M_sun), showing that significant black hole growth must be possible in the absence of mergers or violent disk instabilities. The black hole masses are systematically higher than expected from established bulge-black hole relations. However, if the mean Eddington ratio of the systems with measured black hole masses (L/L_Edd = 0.065) is typical, 10 of 13 sources are consistent with the correlation between black hole mass and total stellar mass. That pure disk galaxies and their central black holes may be consistent with a relation derived from elliptical and bulge-dominated galaxies with very different formation histories implies the details of stellar galaxy evolution and dynamics may not be fundamental to the co-evolution of galaxies and black holes. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T03:42:56Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:be82a7e5-6cf0-413c-8837-ae3da7c3ba2f |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T03:42:56Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:be82a7e5-6cf0-413c-8837-ae3da7c3ba2f2022-03-27T05:40:05ZGalaxy Zoo: Bulgeless Galaxies With Growing Black HolesJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:be82a7e5-6cf0-413c-8837-ae3da7c3ba2fEnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2012Simmons, BLintott, CSchawinski, KMoran, EHan, AKaviraj, SMasters, KUrry, CWillett, KBamford, SNichol, RThe growth of supermassive black holes appears to be driven by galaxy mergers, violent merger-free processes and/or `secular' processes. In order to quantify the effects of secular evolution on black hole growth, we study a sample of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in galaxies with a calm formation history free of significant mergers, a population that heretofore has been difficult to locate. Here we present an initial sample of 13 AGN in massive (M_* >~ 1e10 M_sun) bulgeless galaxies -- which lack the classical bulges believed inevitably to result from mergers -- selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using visual classifications from Galaxy Zoo. Parametric morphological fitting confirms the host galaxies lack classical bulges; any contributions from pseudobulges are very small (typically < 5%). We compute black hole masses for the two broad-line objects in the sample (4.2e6 and 1.2e7 M_sun) and place lower limits on black hole masses for the remaining sample (typically M_BH >~ 1e6 M_sun), showing that significant black hole growth must be possible in the absence of mergers or violent disk instabilities. The black hole masses are systematically higher than expected from established bulge-black hole relations. However, if the mean Eddington ratio of the systems with measured black hole masses (L/L_Edd = 0.065) is typical, 10 of 13 sources are consistent with the correlation between black hole mass and total stellar mass. That pure disk galaxies and their central black holes may be consistent with a relation derived from elliptical and bulge-dominated galaxies with very different formation histories implies the details of stellar galaxy evolution and dynamics may not be fundamental to the co-evolution of galaxies and black holes. |
| spellingShingle | Simmons, B Lintott, C Schawinski, K Moran, E Han, A Kaviraj, S Masters, K Urry, C Willett, K Bamford, S Nichol, R Galaxy Zoo: Bulgeless Galaxies With Growing Black Holes |
| title | Galaxy Zoo: Bulgeless Galaxies With Growing Black Holes |
| title_full | Galaxy Zoo: Bulgeless Galaxies With Growing Black Holes |
| title_fullStr | Galaxy Zoo: Bulgeless Galaxies With Growing Black Holes |
| title_full_unstemmed | Galaxy Zoo: Bulgeless Galaxies With Growing Black Holes |
| title_short | Galaxy Zoo: Bulgeless Galaxies With Growing Black Holes |
| title_sort | galaxy zoo bulgeless galaxies with growing black holes |
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