2005/02/25 by R. J. Wilman, A. C. Edge, R. M. Johnstone
Physics and Astronomy · #Active galactic nucleus #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Black hole (networking) #Cluster (spacecraft) #Core (optical fiber) #Excitation #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Jet (fluid) #Spectroscopy #Star cluster #Stellar mass #Velocity dispersion #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.08956.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 359 (2005) 755-764 · 10 pages, 7 figures; accepted by MNRAS
arxiv created 2005/02/25 · openalex publication_date 2005/04/28 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present near-infrared integral field spectroscopy of the central kiloparsec of NGC 1275 at the heart of the Perseus cluster of galaxies, obtained with the Integral Field Unit (IFU) of the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) Imaging Spectrometer (UIST). The nuclear ro-vibrational H2 emission is spatially resolved and is likely to originate approximately 50 pc from the active nucleus. The Paα emission is, by contrast, spatially unresolved. The requirements for thermal excitation of the H2 by nuclear X-radiation, its kinematics on subarcsec scales and its stability against self-gravity together suggest that the observed H2 is part of a clumpy disc rotating about the radio-jet axis. The sharp jump in the H2 velocity across the nucleus implies a black hole mass of 3.4 × 108 M⊙, with a systematic error of ±0.18 dex due to the uncertainty in the radio-jet inclination. This agrees well with the value implied by the empirical correlation between black hole mass and stellar velocity dispersion for nearby elliptical galaxies, and is ∼100 times the stellar mass in this region.