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Relics of Nuclear Activity: do all galaxies have massive black holes?

Roeland P. van der Marel
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Abstract

The distribution of black hole masses in galaxies is constrained by photometric and kinematic studies of individual galaxies, and by the properties of the quasar population. I review our understanding of these topics, present new results of adiabatic black hole growth models for HST photometry of elliptical galaxies with brightness profiles of the `core' type, and discuss the implications of ground-based stellar kinematical data. It is not yet possible to uniquely determine the black hole mass distribution, but the available evidence is not inconsistent with a picture in which: (i) a majority of galaxies has black holes; (ii) there is a correlation (with large scatter) between black holes mass M_BH and spheroid luminosity L_sph, approximately of the form M_BH = 10^{-2} L_sph (in solar B-band units); and (iii) the black holes formed in a quasar phase through mass accretion with an efficiency of approximately 0.05.

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Roeland P. van der Marel. 1997-12-04. Relics of Nuclear Activity: do all galaxies have massive black holes?. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9712076

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