A Fundamental Relation between Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies

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Abstract

The masses of supermassive black holes correlate almost perfectly with the velocity dispersions of their host bulges, M bh ∝ σ α , where α = 4.8 ± 0.5. The relation is much tighter than the relation between M bh and bulge luminosity, with a scatter no larger than expected on the basis of measurement error alone. Black hole masses recently estimated by Magorrian et al. lie systematically above the M bh -σ relation defined by more accurate mass estimates, some by as much as 2 orders of magnitude. The tightness of the M bh -σ relation implies a strong link between black hole formation and the properties of the stellar bulge.