Fundamental galaxy parameters for radio-loud AGN and the black hole - radio power connection

Abstract

We have determined the central velocity dispersion and surface brightness profiles for a sample of powerful radio galaxies in the redshift range 0.06<z<0.31, which were selected on the basis of their young radio source. The optical hosts follow the fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies, showing that young radio sources reside in normal ellipticals, as do other types of radio galaxies. As young radio sources are relatively straightforward to select and the contributions of the AGN light to the optical spectra are minimal, these objects can readily be used to study the evolution of the fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies out to z=1, independently of optical selection effects. The black hole masses of the objects in our sample have been determined using the tight empirical relation of M_bh with central velocity dispersion, and for literature samples of classical radio galaxies and optically selected ellipticals. Only the optically selected in-active galaxies are found to exhibit a correlation between M_bh and radio luminosity. In contrast, the radio powers of the AGN in the samples do not correlate with M_bh at all, with objects at a given black hole mass ranging over 7 orders of magnitude in radio power. We have been able to tie in the population of powerful radio sources with its parent population of in-active elliptical galaxies: the local black hole mass function has been determined, which was combined with the fraction of radio-loud black holes as function of M_bh, as determined from the optically selected galaxy sample, to derive the local volume-density of radio galaxies and the distribution of their black hole masses. These are shown to be consistent with the local radio luminosity function and the distribution of black hole masses in the radio selected samples [ABBREVIATED]