Black Hole Growth Is Mainly Linked to Host-galaxy Stellar Mass Rather Than Star Formation Rate

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 842; no. 2; pp. 72 - 88
• Main Authors: Yang, G., Chen, C.-T. J., Vito, F., Brandt, W. N., Alexander, D. M., Luo, B., Sun, M. Y., Xue, Y. Q., Bauer, F. E., Koekemoer, A. M., Lehmer, B. D., Liu, T., Schneider, D. P., Shemmer, O., Trump, J. R., Vignali, C., Wang, J.-X.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia The American Astronomical Society 20.06.2017; IOP Publishing
• Subjects: Astrophysics; ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; BLACK HOLES; COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS; ENERGY SPECTRA; GALACTIC EVOLUTION; Galaxies; galaxies: active; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: nuclei; GALAXY NUCLEI; MASS; QUASARS; quasars: supermassive black holes; RED SHIFT; Space telescopes; Spectral energy distribution; Star & galaxy formation; Star formation; Star formation rate; STARS; Stars & galaxies; Stellar mass; Stellar mass accretion; Supermassive black holes; X-RAY GALAXIES; X-rays: galaxies
• ISSN: 0004-637X; 1538-4357
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa7564

We investigate the dependence of black hole accretion rate (BHAR) on host-galaxy star formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass (M*) in the CANDELS/GOODS-South field in the redshift range of . Our sample consists of galaxies, allowing us to probe galaxies with and/or . We use sample-mean BHAR to approximate long-term average BHAR. Our sample-mean BHARs are derived from the Chandra Deep Field-South 7 Ms observations, while the SFRs and M* have been estimated by the CANDELS team through spectral energy distribution fitting. The average BHAR is correlated positively with both SFR and M*, and the BHAR-SFR and BHAR-M* relations can both be described acceptably by linear models with a slope of unity. However, BHAR appears to be correlated more strongly with M* than SFR. This result indicates that M* is the primary host-galaxy property related to supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth, and the apparent BHAR-SFR relation is largely a secondary effect due to the star-forming main sequence. Among our sources, massive galaxies ( ) have significantly higher BHAR/SFR ratios than less massive galaxies, indicating that the former have higher SMBH fueling efficiency and/or higher SMBH occupation fraction than the latter. Our results can naturally explain the observed proportionality between and M* for local giant ellipticals and suggest that their is higher than that of local star-forming galaxies. Among local star-forming galaxies, massive systems might have higher compared to dwarfs.