The M BH – M ∗ Relation of the Hyperluminous Dust-obscured Quasars up to z ∼ 4

Journal article

Hot dust-obscured galaxies (Hot DOGs) are a rare population of hyperluminous dust-obscured quasars discovered by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) all-sky survey. The heavy circumnuclear dust obscuration allows only a small amount of scattered light from the obscured quasar to escape, enabling the decomposition of the stellar component from the total flux. The presence of scattered light enables the redshift of the source and the properties of the black hole to be obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and SDSS-related literature. From WISE and SDSS data, we select 11 hyperluminous Hot DOGs at z = 1.5–3.7 with bolometric luminosities Lbol ≳ 1047 erg s−1. We investigate the MBH–M⋆ relation in these sources using Bayesian spectral energy distribution fitting or with extra constraints from Hubble Space Telescope image decomposition. Stellar masses are successfully derived for eight Hot DOGs. We find high Eddington ratios λEdd in these Hot DOGs, with the median value of 1.05 and the maximum value close to 3. The super-Eddington accretion may be associated with the overdense environments of Hot DOGs. We find no significant differences in the MBH/M⋆ of these Hot DOGs compared to the local relation, suggesting that these dust-obscured quasars are the progenitors of massive early-type galaxies. We speculate that the subsequent evolution of Hot DOGs may be significantly influenced by active galactic nucleus feedback and remain on the local relation.

Authors: Luo, Y; Fan, L; Sun, W; Yu, H; Han, Y

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Astronomical Society
• Journal: The Astrophysical Journal
• Volume: 986
• Issue: 2
• Article number: 195
• Publication date: 2025-06-18
• Acceptance date: 2025-05-28
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/addecf
• EISSN: 1538-4357
• ISSN: 0004-637X
• Language: English
• Keywords: Active galactic nuclei; High-redshift galaxies; Galaxy evolution; Supermassive black holes