English

The Stellar Mass - Black Hole Mass Relation at $z\sim2$ Down to $\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}\sim10^7 M_\odot$ Determined by HETDEX

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2023-05-17 v1

Abstract

We investigate the stellar mass - black hole mass (MMBH\mathcal{M}_*-\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}) relation with type 1 AGN down to MBH=107M\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}=10^7 M_\odot, corresponding to a 21\simeq -21 absolute magnitude in rest-frame ultraviolet (UV), at z=22.5z = 2-2.5. Exploiting the deep and large-area spectroscopic survey of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), we identify 66 type 1 AGN with MBH\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH} ranging from 10710^7 to 1010M10^{10} M_\odot that are measured with single-epoch virial method using C{\sc iv} emission lines detected in the HETDEX spectra. M\mathcal{M}_* of the host galaxies are estimated from optical to near-infrared photometric data taken with Spitzer, WISE, and ground-based 4-8m class telescopes by CIGALE SED fitting. We further assess the validity of SED fitting in two cases by host-nuclear decomposition performed through surface brightness profile fitting on spatially-resolved host galaxies with JWST/NIRCam CEERS data. We obtain the MMBH\mathcal{M}_*-\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH} relation covering the unexplored low-mass ranges of MBH  107108 M\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}~\sim~10^7-10^8~M_\odot, and conduct forward modelling to fully account for the selection biases and observational uncertainties. The intrinsic MMBH\mathcal{M}_*-\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH} relation at z2z\sim 2 has a moderate positive offset of 0.52±0.140.52\pm0.14~dex from the local relation, suggestive of more efficient black hole growth at higher redshift even in the low-mass regime of MBH  107108 M\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}~\sim~10^7-10^8~M_\odot. Our MMBH\mathcal{M}_*-\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH} relation is inconsistent with the MBH\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH} suppression at the low-M\mathcal{M}_* regime predicted by recent hydrodynamic simulations at a 98%98\% confidence level, suggesting that feedback in the low-mass systems may be weaker than those produced in hydrodynamic simulations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2303.02929,
  title  = {The Stellar Mass - Black Hole Mass Relation at $z\sim2$ Down to $\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{BH}\sim10^7 M_\odot$ Determined by HETDEX},
  author = {Yechi Zhang and Masami Ouchi and Karl Gebhardt and Chenxu Liu and Yuichi Harikane and Erin Mentuch Cooper and Dustin Davis and Daniel J. Farrow and Eric Gawiser and Gary J. Hill and Wolfram Kollatschny and Yoshiaki Ono and Donald P. Schneider and Steven L. Finkelstein and Caryl Gronwall and Shardha Jogee and Mirko Krumpe},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.02929},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

16 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ