Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Calibration of the Black Hole Mass-Velocity Dispersion Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei

Christopher A. Onken, Laura Ferrarese, David Merritt, Bradley M. Peterson, Richard W. Pogge, Marianne Vestergaard, Amri Wandel

462 Citations (Scopus)
302 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

We calibrate reverberation-based black hole masses in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by using the correlation between black hole mass, M, and bulge/spheroid stellar velocity dispersion, sigma. We use new measurements of sigma for 6 AGNs and published velocity dispersions for 10 others, in conjunction with improved reverberation mapping results, to determine the scaling factor required to bring reverberation-based black hole masses into agreement with the quiescent galaxy M-sigma relationship. The scatter in the AGN black hole masses is found to be less than a factor of 3. The current observational uncertainties preclude use of the scaling factor to discriminate between broad-line region models.
Original languageEnglish
Article number645
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume615
Issue number2
ISSN0004-637X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 Jul 2004

Keywords

  • astro-ph

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