Upper Limits on the Masses of 105 Supermassive Black Holes from Hubble Space Telescope/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph Archival Data

Based on the modeling of the central emission-line width measured over subarcsecond apertures with the Hubble Space Telescope, we present stringent upper bounds on the mass of the central supermassive black hole, M -, for a sample of 105 nearby galaxies (D < 100 Mpc) spanning a wide range of Hubb...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2009-02, Vol.692 (1), p.856-868
Main Authors: Beifiori, A, Sarzi, M, Corsini, E. M, Bontà, E. Dalla, Pizzella, A, Coccato, L, Bertola, F
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astronomy
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
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Summary:Based on the modeling of the central emission-line width measured over subarcsecond apertures with the Hubble Space Telescope, we present stringent upper bounds on the mass of the central supermassive black hole, M -, for a sample of 105 nearby galaxies (D < 100 Mpc) spanning a wide range of Hubble types (E-Sc) and values of the central stellar velocity dispersion, sigma c (58-419 km s-1). For the vast majority of the objects, the derived M - upper limits run parallel and above the well-known M - sigma c relation independently of the galaxy distance, suggesting that our nebular line-width measurements trace rather well the nuclear gravitational potential. For values of sigma c between 90 and 220 km s-1, 68% of our upper limits falls immediately above the M - sigma c relation without exceeding the expected M - values by more than a factor 4.1. No systematic trends or offsets are observed in this sigma c range as a function of the galaxy Hubble type or with respect to the presence of a bar. For 6 of our 12 M - upper limits with sigma c
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/692/1/856