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A black-hole mass measurement from molecular gas kinematics in NGC4526.
- Source :
-
Nature [Nature] 2013 Feb 21; Vol. 494 (7437), pp. 328-30. Date of Electronic Publication: 2013 Jan 30. - Publication Year :
- 2013
-
Abstract
- The masses of the supermassive black holes found in galaxy bulges are correlated with a multitude of galaxy properties, leading to suggestions that galaxies and black holes may evolve together. The number of reliably measured black-hole masses is small, and the number of methods for measuring them is limited, holding back attempts to understand this co-evolution. Directly measuring black-hole masses is currently possible with stellar kinematics (in early-type galaxies), ionized-gas kinematics (in some spiral and early-type galaxies) and in rare objects that have central maser emission. Here we report that by modelling the effect of a black hole on the kinematics of molecular gas it is possible to fit interferometric observations of CO emission and thereby accurately estimate black-hole masses. We study the dynamics of the gas in the early-type galaxy NGC 4526, and obtain a best fit that requires the presence of a central dark object of 4.5(+4.2)(-3.1) × 10(8) solar masses (3σ confidence limit). With the next-generation millimetre-wavelength interferometers these observations could be reproduced in galaxies out to 75 megaparsecs in less than 5 hours of observing time. The use of molecular gas as a kinematic tracer should thus allow one to estimate black-hole masses in hundreds of galaxies in the local Universe, many more than are accessible with current techniques.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1476-4687
- Volume :
- 494
- Issue :
- 7437
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Nature
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 23364690
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11819