Downsizing of supermassive black holes from the SDSS quasar survey – II. Extension to z∼ 4 |
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| Authors: | M Labita R Decarli A Treves R Falomo |
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| Institution: | Department of Physics and Mathematics, University of Insubria, Via Valleggio 11, I-22100 Como, Italy;INAF, Astronomical Observatory of Padova, Vicolo dell'Osservatorio 5, I-35122 Padova, Italy |
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| Abstract: | Starting from the quasar sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) for which the C iv line is observed, we use an analysis scheme to derive the z -dependence of the maximum mass of active black holes, which overcomes the problems related to the Malmquist bias. The same procedure is applied to the low-redshift sample of SDSS quasars for which Hβ measurements are available. Combining with the results from the previously studied Mg ii sample, we find that the maximum mass of the quasar population increases as (1 + z )1.64±0.04 in the redshift range 0.1  z 4 , which includes the epoch of maximum quasar activity. |
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| Keywords: | galaxies: active galaxies: evolution galaxies: nuclei quasars: general |
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