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Measuring of the masses of galactic supermassive black holes (SMBHs) is an important task, since they correlate with the host galaxy properties and play an important role in evolution of galaxies. Here we present a new method for measuring…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-23 Victor L. Afanasiev , Luka C. Popovic

An empirical relation between the broad line region (BLR) size and optical continuum luminosity is often adopted to estimate the BLR size and then the black hole mass of AGNs. However, optical luminosity may not be a good indicator of…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-10 Xue-Bing Wu , R. Wang , M. Z. Kong , F. K. Liu , J. L. Han

We investigate how hierarchical models for the co-evolution of the massive black hole (MBH) and AGN population can reproduce the observed faint X-ray counts. We find that the main variable influencing the theoretical predictions is the…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-11 Marta Volonteri , Ruben Salvaterra , Francesco Haardt

There is overwhelming evidence for the presence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the centers of most nearby galaxies. The mass estimates for these remnant black holes from the stellar kinematics of local galaxies and the quasar…

Astrophysics · Physics 2016-01-27 Priyamvada Natarajan

This is the second in a series of papers aiming to test how the mass ($M_{\rm BH}$), accretion rate ($\dot{M}$) and spin ($a_{*}$) of super massive black holes (SMBHs) determine the observed properties of type-I active galactic nuclei…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-06-24 Julián E. Mejía-Restrepo , Benny Trakhtenbrot , Paulina Lira , Hagai Netzer , Daniel M. Capellupo

Microlensing is one of the most promising tools for discovering stellar-mass black holes (BHs) in the Milky Way because it allows us to probe dark or faint celestial compact objects. While the existence of stellar-mass BHs has been…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-04-16 Kyungmin Kim , Yeong-Bok Bae , Yoon-Hyun Ryu

Black hole mass is a fundamental property of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). In the distant universe, black hole mass is commonly estimated using the MgII, Hbeta, or Halpha emission line widths and the optical/UV continuum or line…

Astrophysics · Physics 2011-03-28 Kathryn L. McGill , Jong-Hak Woo , Tommaso Treu , Matthew A. Malkan

The large-scale environments of active galactic nuclei (AGN) reveal important information on the growth and evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Previous AGN clustering measurements using 2-point correlation functions have hinted…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-09-03 A. Mhatre , M. C. Powell , S. Yuan , S. W. Allen , T. Caglar , M. Koss , I. del Moral-Castro , K. Oh , A. Peca , C. Ricci , F. Ricci , A. Rojas , M. Signorini

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at redshifts of $z\gtrsim 4-7$, many of which host accreting massive black holes (BHs) with BH-to-galaxy mass ($M_{\rm BH}/M_{\star}$) ratios…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-03-07 Haojie Hu , Kohei Inayoshi , Zoltan Haiman , Luis C. Ho , Ken Ohsuga

Massive black holes (BHs) are detected in the centers of many nearby galaxies are linearly correlated with the luminosity of the host bulge (spheroid), the black hole mass being about 0.1% of the stellar mass. In active galaxies, the BH…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2011-07-22 Amri Wandel

We discuss two methods to estimate black hole (BH) masses using X-ray data only: from the X-ray variability amplitude and from the photon index Gamma. The first method is based on the anti-correlation between BH mass and X-ray variability…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-11 Xin-Lin Zhou , Roberto Soria

X-rays are a critical wavelength for understanding supermassive black holes (SMBHs). X-rays probe the inner accretion flow, closest to the event horizon, where gas inspirals, releasing energy and driving black hole growth. This region also…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-04-01 Erin Kara , Javier García

Based on an updated Hbeta reverberation mapping (RM) sample of 44 nearby active galactic nuclei (AGN), we propose a novel approach for black hole (BH) mass estimation using two filtered luminosities computed from single-epoch (SE) AGN…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2014-09-26 Hua Feng , Yue Shen , Hong Li

The statistical distributions of active galactic nuclei (AGN), i.e. accreting supermassive black holes (BHs), in mass, space and time, are controlled by a series of key properties, namely the BH-galaxy scaling relations, Eddington ratio…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2021-09-15 Viola Allevato , Francesco Shankar , Christopher Marsden , Uluk Rasulov , Akke Viitanen , Antonis Georgakakis , Andrea Ferrara , Alexis Finoguenov

(Abridged) The repeated discovery of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the centers of galactic bulges, and the discovery of relations between the SMBH mass (M) and the properties of these bulges, has been fundamental in directing our…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-14 D. Batcheldor , A. M. Koekemoer

Short-lived intermittent phases of super-critical (super-Eddington) growth, coupled with star formation via positive feedback, may account for early growth of massive black holes (MBH) and coevolution with their host spheroids. We estimate…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-27 Marta Volonteri , Joseph Silk , Guillaume Dubus

Our objective is to critically assess the X-ray flux variability as a tool for measuring the black hole (BH) mass in active galactic nuclei (AGN). We aim to establish a prescription for estimating BH masses based on measurements of the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-10-19 A. Akylas , I. Papadakis , A. Georgakakis

We review a General Relativistic (GR) method to determine the black hole (BH) parameters: mass-to-distance ratio, position and recessional velocity of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) of Seyfert type, which have an accretion disk with water…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-03-03 Adriana González-Juárez , Alfredo Herrera-Aguilar

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are observed in diverse galaxy populations across time yet a clear understanding of how they coevolve with their hosts has not been reached. Physically-motivated models of SMBH accretion and feedback vary…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-11-14 Bryan A. Terrazas , James Aird , Alison L. Coil

We propose a new method to determine the dark matter density profile in the vicinity of distant supermassive black holes (SMBH) using reverberation mapping (RM) measurements of active galactic nuclei (AGN). The mapping of multiple emission…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-02-05 Mayank Sharma , Gonzalo Herrera , Nahum Arav , Shunsaku Horiuchi