Galaxy-scale Bars in Late-type Sloan Digital Sky Survey Galaxies Do Not Influence the Average Accretion Rates of Supermassive Black Holes

Goulding, A.D.; Matthaey, E.; Greene, J.E.; Hickox, R.C.; Alexander, D.M.; Forman, W.R.; Jones, C.; Lehmer, B.D.; Griffis, S.; Kanek, S.; Oulmakki, M.

Abstract

Galaxy-scale bars are expected to provide an effective means for driving material toward the central region in spiral galaxies, and possibly feeding supermassive black holes (BHs). Here we present a statistically complete study of the effect of bars on average BH accretion. From a well-selected sample of 50,794 spiral galaxies (with ${M}_{* }\sim 0.2\mbox{--}30\times {10}^{10}\,{M}_{\odot }$) extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Galaxy Zoo 2 project, we separate those sources considered to contain galaxy-scale bars from those that do not. Using archival data taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, we identify X-ray luminous (${L}_{{\rm{X}}}\gtrsim {10}^{41}\,\mathrm{erg}\,{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}$) active galactic nuclei and perform an X-ray stacking analysis on the remaining X-ray undetected sources. Through X-ray stacking, we derive a time-averaged look at accretion for galaxies at fixed stellar mass and star-formation rate, finding that the average nuclear accretion rates of galaxies with bar structures are fully consistent with those lacking bars (${\dot{M}}_{\mathrm{acc}}\approx 3\times {10}^{-5}$ ${M}_{\odot }$ yr−1). Hence, we robustly conclude that large-scale bars have little or no effect on the average growth of BHs in nearby ($z\lt 0.15$) galaxies over gigayear timescales.

Citation

Goulding, A., Matthaey, E., Greene, J., Hickox, R., Alexander, D., Forman, W., …Oulmakki, M. (2017). Galaxy-scale Bars in Late-type Sloan Digital Sky Survey Galaxies Do Not Influence the Average Accretion Rates of Supermassive Black Holes. Astrophysical Journal, 843(2), Article 135. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aa755b

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 24, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jul 13, 2017
• Publication Date: Jul 13, 2017
• Deposit Date: Aug 4, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 4, 2017
• Journal: Astrophysical Journal
• Print ISSN: 0004-637X
• Electronic ISSN: 1538-4357
• Publisher: American Astronomical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 843
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 135
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aa755b
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1350306