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[114.18] The Relationships Between Black Hole Mass, Quasar Metallicity, and Host Galaxy Mass

C. Warner, F. Hamann, M. Dietrich (University of Florida), J. C. Shields (Ohio University), A. Constantin (Ohio Univeristy), V. Junkkarinen (University of California at San Diego)

We analyze a large sample of 578 Active Galactic Nuclei and report on possible trends between supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass, metallicity, and host galaxy mass. The sample spans five orders of magnitude in SMBH mass and a redshift range from 0 \leq z \leq 5. Recent studies have suggested that there is a relationship between SMBH mass and the overall bulge/spheroidal component mass of the surrounding galaxy. This relation, together with the well-known mass-metallicity relationship for galaxies, predicts a relationship between SMBH mass and quasar metallicity. We estimate the metallicity in the broad emission line region by comparing emission line ratios involving nitrogen to theoretical predictions. We find that the data are consistent with a trend between SMBH mass and metallicity, with some line ratios indicating a very strong trend but uncertainties in several other line ratios are too large to confirm or test this correlation. We also compare the SMBH masses and metallcities with existing HST images of the host galaxies for many of these AGNs in order to test the hypotheses that i) SMBH mass correlates with host galaxy mass and ii) quasar metallicities also scale with the host galaxy mass.

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #4
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.