The relation between black hole mass and velocity dispersion at z~0.37
Abstract
The velocity dispersion of 7 Seyfert 1 galaxies at z~0.37 is measured using high signal-to-noise Keck spectra. Black hole (BH) mass estimates are obtained via an empirically calibrated photoionization method. We derive the BH mass velocity dispersion relationship at z~0.37. We find an offset with respect to the local relationship, in the sense of somewhat lower velocity dispersion at a fixed BH mass at z~0.37 than today, significant at the 97% level. The offset corresponds to Delta log sigma = -0.16 with rms scatter of 0.13 dex. If confirmed by larger samples and independent checks on systematic uncertainties and selection effects, this result would be consistent with spheroids evolving faster than BHs in the past 4 Gyrs and inconsistent with pure luminosity evolution.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0410007,
title = {The relation between black hole mass and velocity dispersion at z~0.37},
author = {Tommaso Treu and Matthew Malkan and Roger Blandford},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0410007},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter, 12 pages, 3 figures