The Relation between Black Hole Mass, Bulge Mass, and Near-Infrared Luminosity

We present new accurate near-infrared (NIR) spheroid (bulge) structural parameters obtained by a two-dimensional image analysis of all galaxies with a direct black hole (BH) mass determination. As expected, NIR bulge luminosities L_bul and BH masses are tightly correlated, and if we consider only those galaxies with a secure BH mass measurement and an accurate L_bul (27 objects), the spread of M_BH-L_bul is similar to M_BH-σ_e, where σ_e is the effective stellar velocity dispersion. We find an intrinsic rms scatter of ~=0.3 dex in logM_BH. By combining the bulge effective radii R_e measured in our analysis with σ_e, we find a tight linear correlation (rms~=0.25 dex) between M_BH and the virial bulge mass (~R_eσ²_e), with <M_BH/M_bul>~0.002. A partial correlation analysis shows that M_BH depends on both σ_e and R_e and that both variables are necessary to drive the correlations between M_BH and other bulge properties.