LLAMA: The M_BH–σ_⋆ relation of the most luminous local AGNs

¹ Leiden Observatory, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
e-mail: caglar@strw.leidenuniv.nl
² Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Universidade do Porto, CAUP, Rua das Estrelas, 4150-762 Porto, Portugal
³ Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Postfach 1312, 85741 Garching, Germany
⁴ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK 99508-4664, USA
⁵ Eureka Scientific Inc, Oakland, CA, USA
⁶ Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, 11F of AS/NTU Astronomy-Mathematics Building, No.1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Rd, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
⁷ Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, IC2 Liverpool Science Park, 146 Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L3 5RF, UK
⁸ Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0389, USA
⁹ Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Departamento de Física/CCNE, 97105-900 Santa Maria, RS, Brazil
¹⁰ Departamento de Astronomia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, IF, CP 15051, 91501-970 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
¹¹ Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Department of Physics, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
¹² Universitäts-Sternwarte München, Scheinerstraße 1, 81679 München, Germany
¹³ Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
¹⁴ Department of Astronomy and Joint Space-Science Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
¹⁵ Institute of Astronomy and Kavli Institute for Cosmology Cambridge, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK
¹⁶ Space Sciences, Technologies, and Astrophysics Research Institute, Université de Liège, 4000 Sart Tilman, Belgium
¹⁷ Department of Physics, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA

Received: 15 July 2019
Accepted: 13 December 2019

Abstract

Context. The M_BH–σ_⋆ relation is considered a result of coevolution between the host galaxies and their supermassive black holes. For elliptical bulge hosting inactive galaxies, this relation is well established, but there is still discussion concerning whether active galaxies follow the same relation.

Aims. In this paper, we estimate black hole masses for a sample of 19 local luminous active galactic nuclei (AGNs; LLAMA) to test their location on the M_BH–σ_⋆ relation. In addition, we test how robustly we can determine the stellar velocity dispersion in the presence of an AGN continuum and AGN emission lines, and as a function of signal-to-noise ratio.

Methods. Supermassive black hole masses (M_BH) were derived from the broad-line-based relations for Hα, Hβ, and Paβ emission line profiles for Type 1 AGNs. We compared the bulge stellar velocity dispersion (σ_⋆) as determined from the Ca II triplet (CaT) with the dispersion measured from the near-infrared CO (2-0) absorption features for each AGN and find them to be consistent with each other. We applied an extinction correction to the observed broad-line fluxes and we corrected the stellar velocity dispersion by an average rotation contribution as determined from spatially resolved stellar kinematic maps.

Results. The Hα-based black hole masses of our sample of AGNs were estimated in the range 6.34 ≤ log M_BH ≤ 7.75 M_⊙ and the σ_⋆CaT estimates range between 73 ≤ σ_⋆CaT ≤ 227 km s⁻¹. From the so-constructed M_BH − σ_⋆ relation for our Type 1 AGNs, we estimate the black hole masses for the Type 2 AGNs and the inactive galaxies in our sample.

Conclusions. We find that our sample of local luminous AGNs is consistent with the M_BH–σ_⋆ relation of lower luminosity AGNs and inactive galaxies, after correcting for dust extinction and the rotational contribution to the stellar velocity dispersion.