Accretion and star formation rates in low redshift type-II active
  galactic nuclei
  Accretion and star formation (SF) rates in low redshift SDSS type-II active
galactic nuclei (AGN) are critically evaluated. Comparison with photoionization
models indicates that bolometric luminosity (Lbol) estimates based on L(oiii
5007A) severely underestimate Lbol in low ionization sources such as LINERs. An
alternative method based on L(hb) is less sensitive to ionization level and a
novel method, based on a combination of L(oiii 5007A) and L(oi 6300A), is
erhaps the best. Using this method I show that low ionization AGN are accreting
faster than assumed until now. Significant related other findings are: 1. Any
type-II AGN property related to the black hole (BH) mass is more reliably
obtained by removing blue galaxies from the sample. 2. Seyfert 2s and LINER 2s
form a continuous sequence of L/Ledd with no indication for a change in
accretion mechanism, or mode of mass supply. There are very few, if any, LINERs
in all type-I samples which results in a much arrower L/Ledd distribution
compared with type-II samples. 3. There is a strong correlation between SF
luminosity, Lsf, and Lbol over more than five orders of magnitude in
luminosity. This leads to a simple relationship between bulge and BH growth
rates, g(bulge)/g(BH) propto Lbol^(-0.2), where g(bulge)/g(BH) = 115 for
Lbol=10^42 erg/sec. Seyfert 2s and LINER 2s follow the same Lsf-Lbol
correlation for all sources with a stellar age indicator, D4000, smaller than
1.8. This suggests that a similar fraction of SF gas finds its way to the
center in all AGN. 4. Lbol, Lsf, L/Ledd and the specific SF rate follow D4000
in a similar way.
