Project Details
Projekt
The cosmic evolution of the black hole mass / bulge mass ratio
Applicant
Professor Dr. Lutz Wisotzki
Subject Area
Astrophysics and Astronomy
Term
from 2007 to 2012
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 42000589
The masses of supermassive black holes in nearby galaxies are well correlated with the masses of their hosting bulges. It is of great interest to follow this correlation out to high redshifts, into look-back times when galaxies were young. Such observations provide fundamental constraints on theoretical models of galaxy formation. We propose to continue a study aiming at the determination of the black hole mass - bulge mass relation at many different redshifts. Outside the local universe, this can only be done using host galaxies of type 1 Active Galactic Nuclei.We have developed a method to obtain photometric estimates of the stellar bulge masses of AGN host galaxies from optical-UV colours in the deblended images, which we now apply to AGN samples at different redshifts. In order to understand and control the influence of sample selection effects and intrinsic scatter, we need to model the sample construction and observing process. This aim will be achieved by means of Monte-Carlo simulations, for which we already started to develop the tools. Finally, we also plan to determine dynamical masses of QSO hosts from spatially resolved emission line velocity fields.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
