Black Hole Masses and Accretion Rates in Nearby AGN

Abstract

Abstract. We present results from a survey of the properties of the central black holes in nearby AGN. This shows that AGN radiating near Eddington are on average less massive now than at z ∼ 1. Keywords. galaxies: active; galaxies: nuclei; accretion, accretion disksWe observed the Ca ii triplet lines near 8550Å in a representative sample of ∼ 150 AGN with z < 0.017. These data were used to derive stellar velocity dispersions (e.g., Nelson & Whittle 1995) and hence black hole masses (Tremaine et al. 2002). We derived accretion rates for 107 of these with measured 25 μm fluxes, using mid-infrared luminosity as a proxy for the luminosity of the AGN (cf. luminosity. Only those objects with MBH < 10 6 . 5 M are near or above Eddington.