Where do z~2 Submillimeter-Emitting Galaxies Lie On the Black-Hole-Spheroid Mass Plane?
Submillimeter-emitting galaxies (SMGs) are z~2 bolometrically luminous systems hosting energetic starburst and AGN activity. SMGs may represent a rapid growth phase that every massive galaxy undergoes before lying on the well-established black-hole-spheroid mass relationship in the local Universe. Here we briefly discuss our recent results from Alexander et al. (2008) where we estimated the masses of the black holes in SMGs using the black-hole virial mass estimator, finding M_BH~6x10^7 M_solar for typical SMGs. We show that the black-hole-spheroid mass ratio for SMGs at z~2 was suggestively below that found for massive galaxies in the local Universe and more than an order of magnitude below the black-hole-spheroid mass ratio estimated for z~2 quasars and radio galaxies. We demonstrate that SMGs and their progeny cannot lie on the elevated z~2 black-hole-spheroid mass relationship of quasars-radio galaxies without overproducing the space density of the most massive black holes (M_BH~10^9 M_solar), unless the galaxy spheroid of SMGs is an order of magnitude lower than that typically assumed (M_SPH~10^10 M_solar). We also show that the relative black-hole-spheroid growth rates of typical SMGs appear to be insufficient to significantly increase the black-hole-spheroid mass ratio, without requiring long duty cycles (~10^9 years), and argue that a more AGN-dominated phase (e.g., an optically bright quasar) is required to significantly move SMGs (and their progeny) up the black-hole-spheroid mass plane.