A fundamental plane of black hole accretion at millimetre wavelengths
Abstract
We report the discovery of the 'mm fundamental plane of black hole accretion', which is a tight correlation between the nuclear 1 mm luminosity (Lν, mm), the intrinsic 2-10 keV X-ray luminosity (LX, 2-10) and the supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass (MBH) with an intrinsic scatter (σint) of 0.40 dex. The plane is found for a sample of 48 nearby galaxies, most of which are low-luminosity active galactic nuclei. Combining these sources with a sample of high-luminosity (quasar-like) nearby AGN, we show that the plane still holds. We also find that MBH correlates with Lν, mm at a highly significant level, although such correlation is less tight than the mm fundamental plane (σint = 0.51 dex). Crucially, we show that spectral energy distribution (SED) models for both advection-dominated accretion flows (ADAFs) and compact jets can explain the existence of these relations, which are not reproduced by the standard torus-thin accretion disc models usually associated to quasar-like AGN. The ADAF models reproduces the observed relations somewhat better than those for compact jets, although neither provides a perfect fit. Our findings thus suggest that radiatively inefficient accretion processes such as those in ADAFs or compact (and thus possibly young) jets may play a key role in both low- and high-luminosity AGN. This mm fundamental plane also offers a new, rapid method to (indirectly) estimate SMBH masses.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- February 2024
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnrasl/slad167
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2307.13872
- Bibcode:
- 2024MNRAS.528L..76R
- Keywords:
-
- black hole physics;
- galaxies: active;
- galaxies: nuclei;
- submillimetre: galaxies;
- X-rays: galaxies;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 9 pages, 5 figures