DEPLETED GALAXY CORES AND DYNAMICAL BLACK HOLE MASSES

Shallow cores in bright, massive galaxies are commonly thought to be the result of scouring of stars by mergers of binary supermassive black holes. Past investigations have suggested correlations between the central black hole mass and the stellar light or mass deficit in the core, using proxy measu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astronomical journal 2013-12, Vol.146 (6), p.1-18
Main Authors: Rusli, S P, Erwin, P, Saglia, R P, Thomas, J, Fabricius, M, Bender, R, Nowak, N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ACCURACY
APPROXIMATIONS
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
BLACK HOLES
Black holes (astronomy)
BRIGHTNESS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
Correlation
Correlation analysis
CORRELATIONS
Depletion
DISPERSIONS
GALAXIES
GALAXY NUCLEI
LUMINOSITY
MASS
PHOTOMETRY
Scatter
SPECTROSCOPY
STARS
SURFACES
VELOCITY
VISIBLE RADIATION
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Summary:Shallow cores in bright, massive galaxies are commonly thought to be the result of scouring of stars by mergers of binary supermassive black holes. Past investigations have suggested correlations between the central black hole mass and the stellar light or mass deficit in the core, using proxy measurements of M sub(BH) or stellarmass-to-light ratios ( Upsilon ). Drawing on a wealth of dynamical models which provide both M sub(BH) and Upsilon , we identify cores in 23 galaxies, of which 20 have direct, reliable measurements of M sub(BH) and dynamical stellar mass-to-light ratios ( Upsilon sub(*,dyn)). These cores are identified and measured using Core-Sersic model fits to surface brightness profiles which extend out to large radii (typically more than the effective radius of the galaxy); for approximately one-fourth of the galaxies, the best fit includes an outer (Sersic) envelope component.We find that the core radius is most strongly correlated with the black hole mass and that it correlates better with total galaxy luminosity than it does with velocity dispersion. The strong core-size-M sub(BH) correlation enables estimation of black hole masses (in core galaxies) with an accuracy comparable to the M sub(BH-[sigma]) relation (rms scatter of 0.30 dex in log M sub(BH)), without the need for spectroscopy. The light and mass deficits correlate more strongly with galaxy velocity dispersion than they do with black hole mass. Stellar mass deficits span a range of 0.2-39 M sub(BH), with almost all (87%) being
ISSN:0004-6256
1538-3881
1538-3881
DOI:10.1088/0004-6256/146/6/160