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Title:
A Fundamental Relation between Compact Stellar Nuclei, Supermassive Black Holes, and Their Host Galaxies
Authors:
Ferrarese, Laura; Côté, Patrick; Dalla Bontà, Elena; Peng, Eric W.; Merritt, David; Jordán, Andrés; Blakeslee, John P.; Haşegan, Monica; Mei, Simona; Piatek, Slawomir; Tonry, John L.; West, Michael J.
Affiliation:
AA(Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada, 5071 West Saanich Road, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7, Canada; .), AB(Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada, 5071 West Saanich Road, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7, Canada; Visiting Astronomer, KPNO/NOAO, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the NSF.), AC(Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada, 5071 West Saanich Road, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7, Canada; Dipartimento di Astronomia, Universitá di Padova, Vicolo dell'Osservatorio 2, 35122 Padua, Italy.), AD(Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada, 5071 West Saanich Road, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7, Canada; Visiting Astronomer, KPNO/NOAO, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the NSF.), AE(Department of Physics, Rochester Institute of Technology, 84 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623.), AF(European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, 85748 Garching, Germany.; Astrophysics, Denys Wilkinson Building, University of Oxford, 1 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK.), AG(Department of Physics, Washington State University, Webster Hall 1245, Pullman, WA 99164-2814.), AH(Visiting Astronomer, KPNO/NOAO, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the NSF.; Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08854.), AI(Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218-2686.), AJ(Department of Physics, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102.), AK(Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822.), AL(Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Hilo, HI 96720.)
Publication:
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 644, Issue 1, pp. L21-L24. (ApJL Homepage)
Publication Date:
06/2006
Origin:
UCP
ApJ Keywords:
Black Hole Physics, Galaxies: Elliptical and Lenticular, cD, Galaxies: Kinematics and Dynamics, Galaxies: Nuclei, Galaxies: Structure
DOI:
10.1086/505388
Bibliographic Code:
2006ApJ...644L..21F

Abstract

Imaging surveys with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have shown that ~50%-80% of low- and intermediate-luminosity galaxies contain a compact stellar nucleus at their center, regardless of host galaxy morphological type. We combine HST imaging for early-type galaxies from the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey with ground-based long-slit spectra from KPNO to show that the masses of compact stellar nuclei in Virgo Cluster galaxies obey a tight correlation with the masses of the host galaxies. The same correlation is obeyed by the supermassive black holes (SBHs) found in predominantly massive galaxies. The compact stellar nuclei in the Local Group galaxies M33 and NGC 205 are also found to fall along this same scaling relation. These results indicate that a generic by-product of galaxy formation is the creation of a central massive object (CMO)-either an SBH or a compact stellar nucleus-that contains a mean fraction, ~0.2%, of the total galactic mass. In galaxies with masses greater than Mgal ~ a few × 1010 Msolar, SBHs appear to be the dominant mode of CMO formation.

Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.


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