2016/06/30 by Jenny E. Greene, J. E. Greene, Anil C. Seth +19 · 104 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black hole (networking) #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Interacting galaxy #Megamaser #Spiral galaxy #Supermassive black hole #Velocity dispersion #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/2041-8205/826/2/l32
published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters 826(2), L32 (IOP Publishing) · 6 pages, 4 figures, replaced to fix error: NGC 4594 is not a maser galaxy
openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex publication_date 2016/07/29 · arxiv created 2016/08/24 · arxiv updated 2016/08/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
ABSTRACT We use new precision measurements of black hole (BH) masses from water megamaser disks to investigate scaling relations between macroscopic galaxy properties and supermassive BH mass. The megamaser-derived BH masses span 10 6 –10 8 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>M</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>⊙</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> , while all the galaxy properties that we examine (including total stellar mass, central mass density, and central velocity dispersion) lie within a narrower range. Thus, no galaxy property correlates tightly with <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>M</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>BH</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> in ∼ L * spiral galaxies as traced by megamaser disks. Of them all, stellar velocity dispersion provides the tightest relation, but at fixed <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>σ</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>*</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> the mean megamaser <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>M</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>BH</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> are offset by −0.6 ± 0.1 dex relative to early-type galaxies. Spiral galaxies with non-maser dynamical BH masses do not appear to show this offset. At low mass, we do not yet know the full distribution of BH mass at fixed galaxy property; the non-maser dynamical measurements may miss the low-mass end of the BH distribution due to an inability to resolve their spheres of influence and/or megamasers may preferentially occur in lower-mass BHs.