Cosmic Evolution of Black Holes and Spheroids. V. The Relation Between
  Black Hole Mass and Host Galaxy Luminosity for a Sample of 79 Active Galaxies
  We investigate the cosmic evolution of the black hole (BH) mass -- bulge
luminosity relation using a sample of 52 active galaxies at $z \sim 0.36$ and
$z \sim 0.57$ in the BH mass range of $10^{7.4-9.1} M_{\odot}$. By consistently
applying multi-component spectral and structural decomposition to high-quality
Keck spectra and high-resolution HST images, BH masses ($M_{\rm BH}$) are
estimated using the H$\beta$ broad emission line combined with the 5100 \AA\
nuclear luminosity, and bulge luminosities ($L_{\rm bul}$) are derived from
surface photometry. Comparing the resulting $M_{\rm BH}-L_{\rm bul}$ relation
to local active galaxies and taking into account selection effects, we find
evolution of the form $M_{\rm BH} / L_{\rm bul} \propto (1+z)^{\gamma}$ with
$\gamma=1.8\pm0.7$, consistent with BH growth preceding that of the host
galaxies. Including an additional sample of 27 active galaxies with $0.5<z<1.9$
taken from the literature and measured in a consistent way, we obtain
$\gamma=0.9\pm0.7$ for the $M_{\rm BH}-L_{\rm bul}$ relation and
$\gamma=0.4\pm0.5$ for the $M_{\rm BH}$--total host galaxy luminosity ($L_{\rm
host}$) relation. The results strengthen the findings from our previous studies
and provide additional evidence for host-galaxy bulge growth being dominated by
disk-to-bulge transformation via minor mergers and/or disk instabilities.
