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Title:
The mass of the black hole in Centaurus A from SINFONI AO-assisted integral-field observations of stellar kinematics
Authors:
Cappellari, Michele; Neumayer, N.; Reunanen, J.; van der Werf, P. P.; de Zeeuw, P. T.; Rix, H.-W.
Affiliation:
AA(Sub-Department of Astrophysics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH), AB(European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str 2, 85748 Garching, Germany), AC(Tuorla Observatory, University of Turku, Väisäläntie 20, 21500 Piikkiö, Finland), AD(Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands), AE(European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str 2, 85748 Garching, Germany; Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands), AF(Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany)
Publication:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 394, Issue 2, pp. 660-674. (MNRAS Homepage)
Publication Date:
04/2009
Origin:
MNRAS
MNRAS Keywords:
black hole physics , instrumentation: adaptive optics , galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD , galaxies: individual: NGC 5128 , galaxies: kinematics and dynamics
DOI:
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.14377.x
Bibliographic Code:
2009MNRAS.394..660C

Abstract

We present a determination of the mass of the supermassive black hole (BH) and the nuclear stellar orbital distribution of the elliptical galaxy Centaurus A (Cen A) (NGC 5128) using high-resolution integral-field observations of the stellar kinematics. The observations were obtained with SINFONI (Spectrograph for INtegral Field Observations in the Near Infrared) at the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope in the near-infrared (IR) (K band), using adaptive optics (AO) to correct for the blurring effect of the Earth's atmosphere. The data have a spatial resolution of 0.17 arcsec full width at half-maximum and high signal-to-noise ratios (S/N) >~ 80 per spectral pixel so that the shape of the stellar line-of-sight velocity distribution can be reliably extracted. We detect clear low-level stellar rotation, which is counter-rotating with respect to the gas. We fit axisymmetric three-integral dynamical models to the data to determine the best-fitting values for the BH mass MBH = (5.5 +/- 3.0) × 107Msolar (3σ errors) and (M/L)K = (0.65 +/- 0.15) in solar units. These values are in excellent agreement with previous determinations from the gas kinematics, and in particular with our own published value, extracted from the same data. This provides one of the cleanest gas versus stars comparisons of MBH determination, due to the use of integral-field data for both dynamical tracers and due to a very well-resolved BH sphere of influence RBH ~ 0.70 arcsec. We derive an accurate profile of the orbital anisotropy, and carefully test its reliability using spherical Jeans models with radially varying anisotropy. We find an increase in the tangential anisotropy close to the BH, but the spatial extent of this effect seems restricted to the size of RBH instead of that of Rb ~ 3.9 arcsec of the core in the surface brightness profile, contrary to detailed predictions of current simulations of the binary BH scouring mechanism. More realistic simulations would be required to draw conclusions from this observation.
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