Black Holes, Galaxy Formation, and the M BH - Relation

Recent X-ray observations of intense high-speed outflows in quasars suggest that supercritical accretion on to the central black hole may have an important effect on a host galaxy. I revisit some ideas of Silk & Rees and assume that such flows occur in the final stages of building up the black hole mass. It is now possible to model explicitly the interaction between the outflow and the host galaxy. This is found to resemble a momentum-driven stellar wind bubble, implying a relation M[subscript BH] = (f[subscript g]κ/2πG[superscript 2])σ[superscript 4] ≃ 1.5 × 10[superscript 8]σ[superscript 4, subscript 200] M[subscript ☉] between black hole mass and bulge velocity dispersion (f[subscript g] = gas fraction…