AGN have Underweight Black Holes and Reach Eddington

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

MNRAS, in press

Scientific paper

Eddington outflows probably regulate the growth of supermassive black holes (SMBH) in AGN. I show that effect of the Rayleigh--Taylor instability on these outflows means that SMBH masses are likely to be a factor of a few below the $M - \sigma$ relation in AGN. This agrees with the suggestion by Batcheldor (2010) that the $M - \sigma$ relation defines an upper limit to the black hole mass. I further argue that observed AGN black holes must spend much of their lives accreting at the Eddington rate. This is already suggested by the low observed AGN fraction amongst all galaxies despite the need to grow to the masses required by the Soltan relation, and is reinforced by the suggested low SMBH masses. Most importantly, this is the simplest explanation of the recent discovery by Tombesi et al (2010a, b) of the widespread incidence of massive ultrafast X--ray outflows in a large sample of AGN.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

AGN have Underweight Black Holes and Reach Eddington 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 AGN have Underweight Black Holes and Reach Eddington, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and AGN have Underweight Black Holes and Reach Eddington will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-135540

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.