Supermassive black holes in galactic bulges

Abstract

Growing evidence indicate supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in a mass range of MBH ~ 106-1010 M⊙ lurking in central stellar bulges of galaxies. Extensive observations reveal fairly tight power laws of MBH versus the mean stellar velocity dispersion σ of the host stellar bulge. Together with evidence for correlations between MBH and other properties of host bulges, the dynamic evolution of a bulge and the formation of a central SMBH should be linked. In this Letter, we reproduce the empirical MBH- σ power laws based on our recent theoretical analyses (Lou & Wang; Wang & Lou; Lou, Jiang & Jin) for a self-similar general polytropic quasi-static dynamic evolution of bulges with self-gravity and spherical symmetry, and present a sensible criterion of forming a central SMBH. The key result is MBH = L σ1/(1-n), where 2/3 < n < 1 and L is a proportional coefficient characteristic of different classes of host bulges. By fitting and comparing several empirical MBH- σ power laws, we conclude that SMBHs and galactic bulges grow and evolve in a coeval manner and most likely there exist several classes of galactic bulge systems in quasi-static self-similar evolution and that to mix them together can lead to an unrealistic fitting. Based on our bulge-SMBH model, we provide explanations for intrinsic scatter in the relation and a unified scenario for the formation and evolution of SMBHs in different classes of host bulges. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 RAS.