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Black-Hole Regulated Star Formation in Massive Galaxies

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Black-Hole Regulated Star Formation in Massive Galaxies LETTER Black-hole regulated star formation in massive galaxies Ignacio Martín-Navarro1,2 , Jean P. Brodie1, Aaron J. Romanowsky3,1, Tomás Ruiz-Lara4,5 & Glenn van de Ven2,6 Super-massive black holes, with masses larger than a million times 10 Over-massive that of the Sun, appear to inhabit the centers of all massive black hole galaxies galaxies1,2. Cosmologically-motivated theories of galaxy formation 9 need feedback from these super-massive black holes to regulate ) • star formation3. In the absence of such feedback, state-of-the-art O numerical simulations dramatically fail to reproduce the number 8 density and properties of massive galaxies in the local Universe4–6. However, there is no observational evidence of this strongly cou- pled co-evolution between super-massive black holes and star for- M ( log M / 7 mation, impeding our understanding of baryonic processes within Under-massive galaxies. Here we show that the star formation histories (SFHs) of 6 black hole galaxies nearby massive galaxies, as measured from their integrated opti- log M = ¢1.25 + 4.07 log cal spectra, depend on the mass of the central super-massive black hole. Our results suggest that black hole mass growth scales with 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 -1 gas cooling rate in the early Universe. The subsequent quenching log ( ¡ / km s ) of star formation takes place earlier and more efficiently in galax- ies hosting more massive central black holes. The observed relation between black hole mass and star formation efficiency appliesto all Figure 1 | Black hole mass – stellar velocity dispersion relation. The stellar generations of stars formed throughout a galaxy’s life, revealing a velocity dispersion of galaxies (σ) tightly correlates with the mass of their cen- tral super-massive black hole (M•). Data points correspond to the 74 HETMGS continuous interplay between black hole activity and baryon cool- galaxies with measured black hole masses and high-quality spectra. The solid line ing. indicates the average black hole mass for a given velocity dispersion. Galaxies As shown in Figure 1, the mass of super-massive black holes (M•) above this best-fitting M•–σ relation have black holes more massive than ex- scales with the stellar velocity dispersion (σ) of their host galaxies2,7. pected for their velocity dispersion, and therefore are called over-massive black The scatter in this relation can be used to quantify how massive a given hole galaxies (red). Conversely, galaxies hosting lighter central black holes than the average population (blue) are called under-massive black hole galaxies. Galax- black hole is compared to the average population. We can then define ies with standard black hole masses are shown in orange. over-massive and under-massive black hole galaxies as those objects lying above and below the best-fitting M•– σ relation, respectively. In other words, over-massive black hole galaxies have central black focused on spectroscopic analysis of wavelengths between 460 and 550 holes more massive than expected, whereas under-massive black hole nm, covering the most prominent age and metallicity spectral features galaxies host relatively light super-massive black holes. The distinction in the optical range. between these two types of galaxies allows us to evaluate the role of SFHs were measured using the STEllar Content and Kinematics black hole activity in star formation, as the amount of energy released 13 arXiv:1801.00807v1 [astro-ph.GA] 2 Jan 2018 via Maximum A Posteriori likelihood (STECKMAP) code , fed with into a galaxy is proportional to the mass of the black hole8,9. the MILES stellar population synthesis models14. STECKMAP is a We based our stellar population analysis on long-slit optical spectra Bayesian method which decomposes the observed spectrum of a galaxy from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Massive Galaxy Survey10. The res- as a temporal series of single stellar population models. Its ability olution of the data varies between 4.8 and 7.5 Å, depending on the slit to recover reliable SFHs of unresolved systems has been thoroughly width. We adopted a fixed aperture of half the effective radius 0.5 R , e tested15–17. Furthermore, STECKMAP-based SFHs are in remarkable where R is defined as the galactocentric radius that encloses half of e agreement with those based on color–magnitude diagrams of nearby the total light of a galaxy. This aperture is large enough to allow for a resolved systems18. Our SFHs are reliable in a relative sense (see Meth- direct comparison in the future between our results and numerical sim- ods) even if there are systematics from the limited set of models. ulations, but also small enough to ensure that we are dominated by in situ star formation11. The sizes of all galaxies in our sample were calcu- Our final sample consists of all HETMGS galaxies with direct 12 black hole mass measurements, and for which we can also deter- lated in a homogeneous way using infrared K-band photometry . We mine their SFHs, 74 in total, probing total stellar masses from M∼ 10 12 1 1 × 10 M⊙ to M∼ 2 × 10 M⊙. We removed from the final sample University of California Observatories, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA 2 Max-Planck Institut für Astronomie, Konigstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany 3Department of galaxies with strong nebular emission lines, in particular around the op- Physics and Astronomy, San José State University, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192, tical Hβ line, which affected the quality of the STECKMAP fit. Note USA 4Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain 5Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain 6European Southern that galaxies with significant emission lines populate only the low-σ Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching b. München, Germany end of our sample (log σ . 2). We normalized individual SFHs so that 1 each galaxy has formed one mass unit at z ∼ 0. massive black hole galaxies rapidly reached a black hole mass capable Our main result is summarized in Figure 2, where we show how of quenching star formation, which led to a shorter star formation time- SFRs and cumulative stellar mass have evolved in over-massive (red), scale. Thus, the baryon cooling efficiency at high redshift would play a in standard (orange) and in under-massive (blue) black hole galaxies. major role in determining the present-day mass of super-massive black This evolution of star formation over cosmic time is strongly coupled holes, feeding the primordial black hole seeds with gas, in agreement 23 to the mass of the central black hole. Over-massive black hole galaxies, with quasar observations . i.e., those with relatively more massive black holes, experienced more The importance of super-massive black holes in galaxy evolution intense SFRs in the very early Universe (look-back times & 10 Gyr) arises from their potential role as quenching agents. We found that compared to galaxies with lighter black holes. Star formation in over- in those galaxies with lighter central black-holes, star formation lasted massive black hole galaxies was quenched earlier, reaching 95% of longer. This time delay, consistent with the observed differences in the 24 their final mass, on average, ∼ 4 Gyr earlier than under-massive black [α-elements/Fe] of over- and under-massive BH galaxies , is natu- hole galaxies, as shown by the cumulative mass distributions. The rally explained if quenching is driven by active galactic nucleus (AGN) amount of recent star formation, however, inversely correlates with the feedback. Accretion onto more massive black holes leads to more en- mass of the black holes, i.e., young stellar populations are more promi- ergetic AGN feedback which would quench the star formation faster. nent in under-massive black hole galaxies. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov This high-redshift picture has its z ∼ 0 counterpart, as recent star for- test of the distributions shown in Figure 2 indicate that they are signifi- mation is also expected to be regulated by AGN activity. If the energy 8,9 cantly different (P-value = 0.026). injection rate scales with the mass of the black hole , lighter black It is worth emphasizing that SFHs and black hole masses are com- holes, growing at low accretion rates in the nearby Universe, would be pletely independent observables. Black hole masses were calculated less efficient at keeping the gaseous corona hot, which will ultimately 25 using a wide variety of methods, but without detailed information on cool and form new stars . In Figure 2, the fraction of young stars anti- the stellar population properties12. If the differences presented in Fig- correlates with the relative mass of the black hole, further supporting ure 2 were to be artifacts of the stellar populations analysis, they could an active role of black holes in regulating star formation within massive not be coupled to the mass of the black hole. This relative charac- galaxies. ter of our approach minimizes the effect of systematic errors in the Investigating the connection between star formation and black hole analysis. We have further checked that neither our choice for the activity has been one of the biggest observational challenges since AGNs were proposed as the main source of feedback within massive STECKMAP free parameters, nor the adopted M•–σ relation, nor the stellar populations modeling affects our conclusions (see Meth- galaxies. Whereas star formation takes places over longer periods of 26 ods). Note also that there is no significant difference in the veloc- time, the rapid and non-linear response of black holes to gas accretion ity dispersion of under-massive, standard and over-massive black hole complicates a clean empirical comparison of both quantities.
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