Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2004-01-08
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
4 pages, 2 figures. Proceedings of the Princeton meeting on "AGN Physics with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey" (July 2003), ed. G
Scientific paper
Studying a sample of both strongly and weakly active galactic nuclei with measured masses and 5 GHz and 2-10 keV core luminosities, together with a few galactic black holes simultaneously observed in the radio and X-ray bands, Merloni, Heinz, & Di Matteo (2003) showed that the sources are correlated through a ``fundamental plane'' relationship in the three-dimensional (log L_R, log L_X, log M) space. Here I elaborate on how such a relationship can be used to infer directly mass and accretion rate of any black hole given its radio and X-ray fluxes, complementing the information obtained from optical/UV surveys. As an example, I show how the local X-ray and radio luminosity functions, coupled with the black hole mass function derived from the M-\sigma relation, provide us with an accretion rate function. It is found that the typical X-ray Eddington ratio of an active black hole at redshift zero is about 5 \times 10^{-4}.
No associations
LandOfFree
The fundamental plane of black hole activity and the census of the local black holes' population does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with The fundamental plane of black hole activity and the census of the local black holes' population, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The fundamental plane of black hole activity and the census of the local black holes' population will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-62463