# Black holes and central surface brightness cusps

## 1. Introduction

The high spatial resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has allowed astronomers to study the photometric structure of galactic nuclei with unprecedented detail. Most studies have focused on early-type galaxies and bulges, and many systems have now been imaged (e.g., Lauer et al. 1995; Carollo et al. 1997). The main result is that at the $`0.1^{\prime \prime }`$ resolution limit of HST, virtually all galaxies have surface brightness cusps, $`Ir^\gamma `$, with $`\gamma >0`$ and no observed transition to a homogeneous core. The observed profiles fall in two categories: ‘core’ profiles, which have a break at a resolved radius and a shallow slope inside that radius ($`\gamma 0.3`$), and ‘power-law’ profiles, which have no clear break but maintain a steep slope ($`\gamma >0.5`$) down to the resolution limit (Faber et al. 1997). Galaxies with $`M_V<22`$ have core profiles, galaxies with $`M_V>20.5`$ have power-law profiles, and both profile types occur in galaxies with $`22<M_V<20.5`$. These observations pose a variety of questions, in particular: what is the origin of the cusps? why is there a range of cusp slopes? and why does the cusp slope correlate with luminosity?

Here I address to what extent the observations can be explained by a scenario in which all galaxies have BHs that grew adiabatically into pre-existing homogeneous cores. This scenario was first proposed and studied by Young (1980). Although it is not the only available scenario to explain the presence of surface brightness cusps in galaxies, its successful application to M87 and M32 (Young et al. 1978; Lauer et al. 1992a,b) certainly makes it one of the more attractive ones. Figure 1 shows the surface brightness profiles that result from adiabatic growth of BHs of various masses $`M_{}`$ into an isothermal sphere model. The BH growth yields the well-known asymptotic slope $`Ir^{1/2}`$ at small radii. However, at the radii observable with HST approximately $`Ir^\gamma `$; the observed slope $`\gamma `$ increases monotonically with $`\mu M_{}/M_{\mathrm{core}}`$, where $`M_{\mathrm{core}}\frac{4}{3}\pi \rho _0r_0^3`$ is a measure of the mass of the initial isothermal core.

## 2. Predictions based on scaling relations

To obtain predictions for the surface brightness profiles of galaxies from Young’s models one must know both the black hole mass and the characteristics of the homogeneous progenitor cores. These quantities all scale with galaxy luminosity. Kinematical BH detections in nearby galaxies indicate an approximately linear relationship between $`M_{}`$ and galaxy (spheroid) luminosity $`L`$ (e.g., Kormendy & Richstone 1995; Magorrian et al. 1998; see also Figure 3 below). For core galaxies, the observed nuclear photometric parameters obey scaling relations similar to those of the fundamental plane (Faber et al. 1997). In the scenario studied here, these photometric relations must reflect properties of the initially homogeneous cores from which the present cusps formed. It is tempting to assume that the homogeneous progenitor cores of power-law galaxies followed the same relations, because core galaxies and power-law galaxies also follow the same global fundamental plane relations.

With these arguments and relations, Young’s models predict a unique surface brightness profile as function of luminosity. Figure 2 shows the results at the distance of Virgo. The dimensionless BH mass scales as $`\mu L^{0.5}`$, because $`M_{}L`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{core}}L^{1.5}`$. Hence, steeper cusps are predicted in lower-luminosity galaxies. Figure 2 shows that core profiles are predicted for $`M_V<21.2`$, and power-law profiles for $`M_V>21.2`$. This reproduces both the sense and the absolute magnitude of the observed transition. Intrinsic scatter in BH and galaxy properties can explain why both types of galaxies are observed around the transition magnitude.

## 3. The black hole mass distribution

These results suggest that the observed surface brightness cusps in galactic nuclei are consistent with the typical BH masses determined kinematically. This can be verified in more detail by fitting Young’s models to the HST surface brightness profiles of individual galaxies. I have done this for a sample of 46 galaxies with published HST photometry and $`M_V<19.7`$ (for less-luminous galaxies one expects to resolve neither the clear signature of a core, nor that of a BH, at the $`0.1^{\prime \prime }`$ resolution of HST). The fits are generally quite good, with typical RMS residuals of 0.03–0.08 mag/arcsec<sup>2</sup>.

Figure 3a shows the BH masses thus inferred as function of galaxy luminosity. There is a clear correlation. The best-fit line of unit slope is $`\mathrm{log}M_{}1.83+\mathrm{log}L_V`$ (solar units). This is fully consistent with the correlation inferred from kinematical BH detections in nearby galaxies (Figure 3b), $`\mathrm{log}M_{}1.96+\mathrm{log}L_V`$. Also, photometrically and kinematically determined BH masses agree to within $`0.25`$ dex RMS for galaxies that have both.

These results provide additional support to the hypothesis that every galaxy has a central BH, and that the BH mass correlates with galaxy (spheroid) luminosity. The correlations in Figure 3 are consistent with quasar statistics, if every galaxy spheroid harbors a BH that was formed in a quasar phase through matter accretion with efficiency $`ϵ0.04`$ (van der Marel 1998).

All this demonstrates that Young’s photometric models provide a useful estimate of BH masses in cases where high spatial resolution kinematical data are unavailable. This is somewhat remarkable, since the models ignore, among other things, the influence of mergers. Further work is required to determine what these results teach us about the physics and timescale of BH formation.

### Acknowledgments.

I thank Gerry Quinlan for kindly allowing me to use his adiabatic BH growth software. This work was supported by an STScI Fellowship. STScI is operated by AURA Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555.

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