Investigating the cosmic evolution of the black hole mass-bulge luminosity scaling relation

  • Park, Daeseong (Seoul National University) ;
  • Woo, Jong-Hak (Seoul National University) ;
  • Treu, Tommaso (University of California) ;
  • Bennert, Vardha N. (California Polytechnic State University) ;
  • Malkan, Matthew A. (University of California) ;
  • Auger, Matthew W. (University of Cambridge)
  • Published : 2013.10.08

Abstract

We investigate the cosmic evolution of the black hole mass-bulge luminosity relation with a sample of 52 moderate-luminosity AGNs at $z{\simeq}0.36$ and $z{\simeq}0.57$, corresponding to look-back times of 4 and 6 Gyrs. By employing robust multi-component spectral and structural decomposition methods to the obtained high-quality Keck spectra and high-resolution HST images, black hole masses ($M_{BH}$) are estimated from the Hbeta broad emission line with the 5100A nuclear luminosity, and bulge luminosities ($L_{bul}$) are derived from the surface photometry. Based on these consistent measurements, we constrain the redshift evolution of the $M_{BH}-L_{bul}$ relation by performing the Monte Carlo simulations designed to account for selection effects. We provide implications of our results in terms of the black hole-galaxy co-evolution and discuss possible bulge growth mechanisms.

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