Empirical constraints on the evolution of the relationship between black hole and galaxy mass: scatter matters

Abstract

I investigate whether useful constraints on the evolution of the relationship between galaxy mass and black hole (BH) mass can be obtained from recent measurements of galaxy stellar mass functions and QSO bolometric luminosity functions at high redshift. I assume a simple power-law relationship between galaxy mass and BH mass, as implied by BH mass measurements at low redshift, and consider only evolution in the zero-point of the relation. I argue that one can obtain a lower limit on the zero-point evolution by assuming that every galaxy hosts a BH, shining at its Eddington rate. One can obtain an upper limit by requiring that the number of massive BH at high redshift does not exceed that observed locally. I find that, under these assumptions, and neglecting scatter in the BH-galaxy mass relation, BH must have been a factor of about 2 times larger at z=1 and 5 to 6 times more massive relative to their host galaxies at z=2. However, accounting for intrinsic scatter in the BH-galaxy mass relationship considerably relaxes these constraints. With a logarithmic scatter of 0.3 to 0.5 dex in black hole mass at fixed galaxy mass, similar to estimates of the intrinsic scatter in the observed relation today, there are enough massive BH to produce the observed population of luminous QSOs at z=2 even in the absence of any zero-point evolution. Adopting more realistic estimates for the fraction of galaxies that host active BH and the Eddington ratios of the associated quasars, I find that the zero-point of the BH-galaxy mass relation at z=2 cannot be much more than a factor of two times larger than the present-day value, as the number of luminous quasars predicted would exceed the observed population.