A Fundamental Plane of black hole activity

We examine the disc-jet connection in stellar mass and supermassive black holes by investigating the properties of their compact emission in the X-ray and radio bands. We compile a sample of 100 active galactic nuclei with measured masses, 5-GHz core emission, and 2-10 keV luminosities, together with eight galactic black holes with a total of 50 simultaneous observations in the radio and X-ray bands. Using this sample, we study the correlations between the radio (L R ) and the X-ray (L X ) luminosity and the black hole mass (M). We find that the radio luminosity is correlated with both M and L X , at a highly significant level. In particular, we show that the sources define a 'Fundamental Plane' in the…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• CI
  California Institute of Technology
• NR
  National Radio Astronomy Observatory
• JP
  Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• GS
  Goddard Space Flight Center