MASSIVE BLACK HOLES IN CENTRAL CLUSTER GALAXIES

We explore how the co-evolution of massive black holes (MBHs) and galaxies is affected by environmental effects, addressing in particular MBHs hosted in the central cluster galaxies (we will refer to these galaxies in general as ''CCGs''). Recently, the sample of MBHs in CCGs with dynamically measured masses has increased, and it has been suggested that these MBH masses (MBH) deviate from the expected correlations with velocity dispersion (σ) and mass of the bulge (Mbulge) of the host galaxy: MBHs in CCGs appear to be ''overmassive''. This discrepancy is more pronounced when considering the MBH-σ relation than the MBH-Mbulge one. We show that this behavior stems from a combination of two natural factors: (1) CCGs experience more mergers involving spheroidal galaxies and their MBHs and (2) such mergers are preferentially gas poor. We use a combination of analytical and semi-analytical models to investigate the MBH-galaxy co-evolution in different environments and find that the combination of these two factors is in accordance with the trends observed in current data sets.