Supermassive black holes and their host spheroids III. The $M_{BH} - n_{sph}$ correlation

Abstract

The S\'ersic $R^{1/n}$ model is the best approximation known to date for describing the light distribution of stellar spheroidal and disk components, with the S\'ersic index $n$ providing a direct measure of the central radial concentration of stars. The S\'ersic index of a galaxy's spheroidal component, $n_{sph}$, has been shown to tightly correlate with the mass of the central supermassive black hole, $M_{BH}$. The $M_{BH}-n_{sph}$ correlation is also expected from other two well known scaling relations involving the spheroid luminosity, $L_{sph}$: the $L_{sph}-n_{sph}$ and the $M_{BH}-L_{sph}$. Obtaining an accurate estimate of the spheroid S\'ersic index requires a careful modelling of a galaxy's light distribution and some studies have failed to recover a statistically significant $M_{BH}-n_{sph}$ correlation. With the aim of re-investigating the $M_{BH}-n_{sph}$ and other black hole mass scaling relations, we performed a detailed (i.e.~bulge, disks, bars, spiral arms, rings, halo, nucleus, etc.) decomposition of 66 galaxies, with directly measured black hole masses, that had been imaged at $3.6\rm~\mu m$ with Spitzer. In this paper, the third of this series, we present an analysis of the $L_{sph}-n_{sph}$ and $M_{BH}-n_{sph}$ diagrams. While early-type (elliptical+lenticular) and late-type (spiral) galaxies split into two separate relations in the $L_{sph}-n_{sph}$ and $M_{BH}-L_{sph}$ diagrams, they reunite into a single $M_{BH} \propto n_{sph}^{3.39 \pm 0.15}$ sequence with relatively small intrinsic scatter ($\epsilon \simeq 0.25 \rm~dex$). The black hole mass appears to be closely related to the spheroid central concentration of stars, which mirrors the inner gradient of the spheroid gravitational potential.