Are nuclear star clusters the precursors of massive black holes?

Details Are nuclear star clusters the precursors of massive black holes? Are nuclear star clusters the precursors of massive black holes?

2012-01-24

arxiv.org/abs/1201.4950v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

11 pages, 5 figures - accepted for publication in the special issue of Advances in Astronomy "Seeking for the Leading Actor on

Scientific paper

We present new upper limits for black hole masses in extremely late type spiral galaxies. We confirm that this class of galaxies has black holes with masses less than 10^6 Msolar, if any. We also derive new upper limits for nuclear star cluster (NC) masses in massive galaxies with previously determined black hole masses. We use the newly derived upper limits and a literature compilation to study the low mass end of the global-to-nucleus relations. We find the following (1) The M_BH-sigma relation cannot flatten at low masses, but may steepen. (2) The M_BH-M_bulge relation may well flatten in contrast. (3) The M_BH-Sersic n relation is able to account for the large scatter in black hole masses in low-mass disk galaxies. Outliers in the M_BH-Sersic n relation seem to be dwarf elliptical galaxies. When plotting M_BH versus M_NC we find three different regimes: (a) nuclear cluster dominated nuclei, (b) a transition region, and (c) black hole-dominated nuclei. This is consistent with the picture, in which black holes form inside nuclear clusters with a very low-mass fraction. They subsequently grow much faster than the nuclear cluster, destroying it when the ratio M_BH/M_NC grows above 100. Nuclear star clusters may thus be the precursors of massive black holes in galaxy nuclei.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Are nuclear star clusters the precursors of massive black holes? 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 Are nuclear star clusters the precursors of massive black holes?, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Are nuclear star clusters the precursors of massive black holes? will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-106752