Supermassive black holes in a mass-limited galaxy sample

Abstract

ABSTRACT The observed scaling relations between supermassive black hole masses and their host galaxy properties indicate that supermassive black holes influence the evolution of galaxies. However, the scaling relations may be affected by selection biases. We propose to measure black hole masses in a mass-limited galaxy sample including all non-detections to inprove constraints on galaxy mass – black hole mass scaling relations and test for selection bias. We use high-spatial resolution spectroscopy from the Keck and Gemini telescopes, and the Jeans Anisotropic Modelling method to measure black hole masses in early-type galaxies from the Virgo Cluster. We present four new black hole masses and one upper limit in our mass-selected sample of galaxies of galaxy mass (1.0–3.2) $\times 10^{10} \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$. This brings the total measured to 11 galaxies out of a full sample of 18 galaxies, allowing us to constrain scaling relations. We calculate a lower limit for the average black hole mass in our sample of $3.7 \times 10^{7} \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$. This is at an average galaxy stellar mass of $(1.81 \pm 0.14)\times 10^{10} \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$ and an average bulge mass of $(1.31 \pm 0.15) \times 10^{10} \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$. This lower limit shows that black hole masses in early-type galaxies are not strongly affected by selection biases.