SDSS-DR7 broad-line QSOs

It has been suggested that this sequence is mainly driven by the Eddington ratio (L/L_Edd_) of the black hole (BH) accretion. Shen & Ho (2014Natur.513..210S) demonstrated with quasar clustering analysis that the average BH mass decreases with increasing FeII strength when quasar luminosity is fixed, consistent with this suggestion.

Here we perform an independent test by measuring the stellar velocity dispersion {sigma}_*_ (hence, the BH mass via the M-{sigma}_*_ relation) from decomposed host spectra in low-redshift Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasars. We found that at fixed quasar luminosity, {sigma}_*_ systematically decreases with increasing FeII strength, confirming that the Eddington ratio increases with FeII strength. We also found that at fixed luminosity and FeII strength, there is little dependence of {sigma}_*_ on the broad H{beta} FWHM.