Revealing the intermediate-mass black hole at the heart of the dwarf galaxy NGC 404 with sub-parsec resolution ALMA observations

Davis, Timothy A.; Nguyen, Dieu D.; Seth, Anil; Greene, Jenny E.; Nyland, Kristina; Barth, Aaron J.; Bureau, Martin; Cappellari, Michele; Brok, Mark den; Iguchi, Satoru; Lelli, Federico; Liu, Lijie; Neumayer, Nadine; North, Eve V.; Onishi, Kyoko; Sarzi, Marc; Smith, Mark D.; Williams, Thomas G.

doi:10.1093/mnras/staa1567

Cited by 66 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…These measurements rival the best megamaser measurements, up to now the 'gold standard' of extragalactic M BH measurements. The molecular gas method also extends accurate measurements towards the regime of ࣠10 6 M BHs, for example in NGC 404 with M BH = 5 +1 −2 × 10 5 M (Davis et al 2020) and now NGC 3593 in this work. All of these works prove that the cold-gas dynamical method combined with ALMA observations at high angular resolutions can now be effective over a range of BH masses covering six orders of magnitude (10 5 -10 10 M ).…”

supporting

confidence: 56%

“…Overall, the model thus optimizes the fit to the observations with seven free parameters: stellar mass surface density at a radius of 4 arcsec (stellar mass normalization) ,4 , total flux of the fitted region (ISM mass normalization) f, inclination i, and galaxy centre in space (x c , y c ) and velocity (v off ; all defined with respect to the previously determined centre; see Section 3.4), to which we add a spatially constant tracer (turbulent) velocity dispersion (σ 0 ). The kinematic tracer is assumed to lie in a thin disc (by fixing the disc thickness d t = 0; Davis et al 2020). At this point, while modelling the outer part of the 12 CO(2-1) gas kinematics only, we ignore the gravitational potential contributed by the central SMBH (but see Section 4.3).…”

Section: Outer Mass Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(4) hard X-ray emission (e.g. Gallo et al 2008;Desroches, Greene & Ho 2009;Gallo et al 2010;Miller et al 2015;She, Ho & Feng 2017b, a), (5) detection of other emission lines, such as Brγ , that might be associated with X-ray radiation from the accreting region (Osterbrock 1989;Panessa et al 2006;Cresci et al 2010;Reines et al 2011;Nguyen et al 2014), (6) the dynamics of accretion discs containing megamasers (Miyoshi et al 1995;Lo 2005;Kuo et al 2011;van den Bosch et al 2016), and (7) the dynamics of stars and warm/ionized gas (Verolme et al 2002;Valluri et al 2005;Neumayer et al 2007;Seth et al 2010;van den Bosch & de Zeeuw 2010;den Brok et al 2015;Nguyen et al , 2018Thater et al 2017Thater et al , 2019Krajnović et al 2018) and dynamically CMC (Combes et al 2019;Davis et al 2020;this work) in lowmass galaxies (5 × 10 8 < M ࣠ 10 10 M ) and ultracompact dwarfs (UCDs; 1 × 10 7 < M ≤ 5 × 10 8 M ; Seth et al 2014;Ahn et al 2017;Afanasiev et al 2018;Ahn et al 2018;Voggel et al 2018). The importance of the ࣠10 6 M BH population is discussed in detail in , Nguyen et al (2018), .…”

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confidence: 99%

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The MBHBM⋆ Project – II. Molecular gas kinematics in the lenticular galaxy NGC 3593 reveal a supermassive black hole

Nguyen

Bureau

Thater

et al. 2021

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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As part of the Measuring Black Holes in below Milky Way-mass (M⋆) galaxies (MBHBM⋆) Project, we present a dynamical measurement of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass in the nearby lenticular galaxy NGC 3593, using cold molecular gas 12CO(2-1) emission observed at an angular resolution of ≈0${_{.}^{\prime\prime}}$3 (≈10 pc) with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Our ALMA observations reveal a circumnuclear molecular gas disc (CND) elongated along the galaxy major axis and rotating around the SMBH. This CND has a relatively low-velocity dispersion (≲10 km s−1) and is morphologically complex, with clumps having higher integrated intensities and velocity dispersions (≲25 km s−1). These clumps are distributed along the ridges of a two-arm/bi-symmetric spiral pattern surrounded by a larger ring-like structure (radius r ≈ 10 arcsec or ≈350 pc). This pattern likely plays an important role to bridge the molecular gas reservoirs in the CND and beyond (10 ≲ r ≲ 35 arcsec or 350 pc ≲ r ≲ 1.2 kpc). Using dynamical modelling, the molecular gas kinematics allow us to infer an SMBH mass $M_{\rm BH}=2.40_{-1.05}^{+1.87}\times 10^6$ M⊙ (only statistical uncertainties at the 3σ level). We also detect a massive core of cold molecular gas (CMC) of mass MCMC = (5.4 ± 1.2) × 106 M⊙ and effective (half-mass) radius rCMC,e = 11.2 ± 2.8 pc, co-spatial with a nuclear star cluster (NSC) of mass MNSC = (1.67 ± 0.48) × 107 M⊙ and effective radius rNSC,e = 5.0 ± 1.0 pc (or 0${_{.}^{\prime\prime}}$15 ± 0${_{.}^{\prime\prime}}$03). The mass profiles of the CMC and NSC are well described by Sérsic functions with indices 1−1.4. Our MBH and MNSC estimates for NGC 3593 agree well with the recently compiled MBH–MNSC scaling relation. Although the MNSC uncertainty is twice the inferred MBH, the rapid central rise of the rotation velocities of the CND (as the radius decreases) clearly suggests an SMBH. Indeed, our dynamical models show that even if MNSC is at the upper end of its allowed range, the evidence for a BH does not vanish, but remains with a lower limit of MBH > 3 × 105 M⊙.

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supporting

confidence: 56%

Section: Outer Mass Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The MBHBM⋆ Project – II. Molecular gas kinematics in the lenticular galaxy NGC 3593 reveal a supermassive black hole

Nguyen

Bureau

Thater

et al. 2021

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…Barth et al 2016a,b;Boizelle et al 2019;Nagai et al 2019;Thater et al 2020). Notably, using this method, robust constraints have even been placed on a few SMBH masses in dwarf galaxies (Nguyen et al 2020;Davis et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

WISDOM project – VII. Molecular gas measurement of the supermassive black hole mass in the elliptical galaxy NGC 7052

Smith

Bureau

Davis

et al. 2021

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Supermassive black hole (SMBH) masses can be measured by resolving the dynamical influences of the SMBHs on tracers of the central potentials. Modern long-baseline interferometers have enabled the use of molecular gas as such a tracer. We present here Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of the elliptical galaxy NGC 7052 at $0{{_{.}^{\prime\prime}}}11$ (37 pc) resolution in the 12CO(2-1) line and 1.3 mm continuum emission. This resolution is sufficient to resolve the region in which the potential is dominated by the SMBH. We forward model these observations, using a multi-Gaussian expansion of a Hubble Space Telescope F814W image and a spatially-constant mass-to-light ratio to model the stellar mass distribution. We infer a SMBH mass of 2.5 ± 0.3 × 109 M⊙ and a stellar I-band mass-to-light ratio of 4.6 ± 0.2 M⊙/L⊙, I (3σ confidence intervals). This SMBH mass is significantly larger than that derived using ionised gas kinematics, which however appear significantly more kinematically disturbed than the molecular gas. We also show that a central molecular gas deficit is likely to be the result of tidal disruption of molecular gas clouds due to the strong gradient in the central gravitational potential.

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“…This is becoming instrumental to high-precision measurements of black hole masses in the "intermediate" mass domain, a previously uncharted territory. For instance, sub-parsec resolution ALMA observations revealed a black hole with mass ∼ 5 • 10 5 M 0 in the dwarf galaxy NGC404 (Davis et al, 2020).…”

Section: Massive Black Holes At the Center Of Quiescent (Or Weakly Active) Galaxiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Past, Present, and Future of the Scaling Relations of Galaxies and Active Galactic Nuclei

D’Onofrio

Marziani

Chiosi

2021

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

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We review the properties of the established Scaling Relations (SRs) of galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGN), focusing on their origin and expected evolution back in time, providing a short history of the most important progresses obtained up to now and discussing the possible future studies. We also try to connect the observed SRs with the physical mechanisms behind them, examining to what extent current models reproduce the observational data. The emerging picture clarifies the complexity intrinsic to the galaxy formation and evolution process as well as the basic uncertainties still affecting our knowledge of the AGN phenomenon. At the same time, however, it suggests that the detailed analysis of the SRs can profitably contribute to our understanding of galaxies and AGN.

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Revealing the intermediate-mass black hole at the heart of the dwarf galaxy NGC 404 with sub-parsec resolution ALMA observations

Cited by 66 publications

References 69 publications

The MBHBM⋆ Project – II. Molecular gas kinematics in the lenticular galaxy NGC 3593 reveal a supermassive black hole

The MBHBM⋆ Project – II. Molecular gas kinematics in the lenticular galaxy NGC 3593 reveal a supermassive black hole

WISDOM project – VII. Molecular gas measurement of the supermassive black hole mass in the elliptical galaxy NGC 7052

Past, Present, and Future of the Scaling Relations of Galaxies and Active Galactic Nuclei

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