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

Abstract

Based on the modeling of the central emission-line width measured over sub-arcsecond apertures with the Hubble Space Telescope, we present stringent upper bounds on the mass of the central supermassive black hole, MBH, for a sample of 105 nearby galaxies (D<100Mpc) spanning a wide range of Hubble types (E-Sc) and values of the central stellar velocity dispersion, sigma (58-419km/s). For the vast majority of the objects the derived MBH upper limits run parallel and above the well-known MBH-sigma relation independently of the galaxy distance, suggesting that our nebular line-width measurements trace rather well the nuclear gravitational potential. For values of sigma between 90 and 220km/s the 68% of our upper limits falls immediately above the MBH-sigma relation without exceeding the expected MBH values by more than a factor 4.1. No systematic trends or offsets are observed in this sigma range as a function of the galaxy Hubble type or with respect to the presence of a bar. For 6 of our 12 MBH upper limits with sigma<90km/s our line-width measurements are more sensitive to the stellar contribution to the gravitational potential, either due to the presence of a nuclear stellar cluster or because of a greater distance compared to the other galaxies at the low-sigma end of the MBH-sigma relation. Conversely, our MBH upper bounds appear to lie closer to the expected MBH in the most massive elliptical galaxies with values of sigma above 220km/s. Such a flattening of the MBH-sigma relation at its high-sigma end would appear consistent with a coevolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies driven by dry mergers, although better and more consistent measurements for sigma and K-band luminosity are needed for these kind of objects before systematic effects can be ruled out.

15 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication on ApJ. An ascii version of Tab.1 is available upon request

References in corpus (20)

• Nuclear Activity in Nearby Galaxies
• The SAURON project -- IX. A kinematic classification for early-type galaxies
• The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. VIII. The Nuclei of Early-Type Galaxies
• The SAURON project - VII. Integral-field absorption and emission-line kinematics of 24 spiral galaxy bulges
• The Coincidence of Nuclear Star Clusters and Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Star-Forming Torus and Stellar Dynamical Black Hole Mass in the Seyfert 1 Nucleus of NGC3227
• Fundamental Planes, and the "barless" M-sigma relation, for supermassive black holes
• Suppression of star formation in early-type galaxies by feedback from supermassive black holes
• Host Galaxy Bulge Predictors of Supermassive Black Hole Mass
• Gravitational recoil: signatures on the massive black hole population
• The Central Kiloparsec of Seyfert and Inactive Host Galaxies: a Comparison of Two-Dimensional Stellar and Gaseous Kinematics
• Dynamical Constraints on The Masses of the Nuclear Star Cluster and Black Hole in the Late-Type Spiral Galaxy NGC 3621
• The High-Mass End of the Black Hole Mass Function: Mass Estimates in Brightest Cluster Galaxies
• Supermassive black holes in the Sbc spiral galaxies NGC 3310, NGC 4303 and NGC 4258
• The supermassive black hole in NGC4486a detected with SINFONI at the VLT
• Measuring supermassive black holes with gas kinematics: the active S0 galaxy NGC 3998
• Hubble Space Telescope Spectroscopic Observations of the Narrow-Line Region in Nearby Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei
• Dark and Baryonic Matter in Bright Spiral Galaxies: I.Near-infrared and Optical Broadband Surface Photometry of 30 Galaxies
• The Nuclear Orbital Distribution in Galaxies as Fossil Record of Black Hole Formation from Integral-Field Spectroscopy
• Measuring supermassive black holes with gas kinematics - II. The LINERs IC 989, NGC 5077, and NGC 6500

Cited by in corpus (54)

• Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• The M-sigma and M-L Relations in Galactic Bulges and Determinations of their Intrinsic Scatter
• Revisiting the Scaling Relations of Black Hole Masses and Host Galaxy Properties
• An expanded M_bh-sigma diagram, and a new calibration of active galactic nuclei masses
• The SINFONI Black Hole Survey: The Black Hole Fundamental Plane revisited and the paths of (co-) evolution of supermassive black holes and bulges
• Selection bias in dynamically-measured super-massive black hole samples: its consequences and the quest for the most fundamental relation
• Unification of the Fundamental Plane and Super-Massive Black Holes Masses
• On the Correlations between Galaxy Properties and Supermassive Black Hole Mass
• Nuclear star formation activity and black hole accretion in nearby Seyfert galaxies
• The Influence of Dark Matter Halos on Dynamical Estimates of Black Hole Mass: Ten New Measurements for High-sigma Early-Type Galaxies
• Do black hole masses scale with classical bulge luminosities only? The case of the two composite pseudobulge galaxies NGC3368 and NGC3489
• The Type IIP Supernova 2012aw in M95: hydrodynamical modelling of the photospheric phase from accurate spectrophotometric monitoring
• Hunting for Supermassive Black Holes in Nearby Galaxies with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope
• The central black hole mass of the high-sigma but low-bulge-luminosity lenticular galaxy NGC 1332
• New evidence for the ubiquity of prominent polar dust emission in AGN on tens of parsec scales
• Jet collimation in NGC 315 and other nearby AGN
• Black Hole Mass Measurements of Radio Galaxies NGC 315 and NGC 4261 Using ALMA CO Observations
• WISDOM Project - III: Molecular gas measurement of the supermassive black hole mass in the barred lenticular galaxy NGC4429
• Gas Streaming Motions towards the Nucleus of M81
• Normal black holes in bulge-less galaxies: the largely quiescent, merger-free growth of black holes over cosmic time
• A quartet of black holes and a missing duo: probing the low-end of the Mbh - sigma relation with the adaptive optics assisted integral-field spectroscopy
• The SLUGGS Survey: A comparison of total-mass profiles of early-type galaxies from observations and cosmological simulations, to $\sim$4 effective radii
• WISDOM project -- V. Resolving molecular gas in Keplerian rotation around the supermassive black hole in NGC 0383
• The M-Sigma Relation Derived from Sphere of Influence Arguments
• The nucleation fraction of Local Volume galaxies
• A figure of merit for black hole mass measurements with molecular gas
• Surprises in Image Decomposition of Edge-on Galaxies: does Sombrero have a (classical) bulge?
• Observational selection effects and the M-sigma relation
• Probing the physics of narrow-line regions of Seyfert galaxies I: The case of NGC 5427
• Molecular gas in the centre of nearby galaxies from VLT/SINFONI integral field spectroscopy - II. Kinematics
• A Consistent Set of Empirical Scaling Relations for Spiral Galaxies: The $(v_{\max },M_{\mathrm{DM}})$-$({\sigma }_0,M_{\mathrm{BH}},\varphi )$ Relations
• The effect of bars on the M-sigma relation: offset, scatter and residuals correlations
• Refining the M_BH-V_c scaling relation with HI rotation curves of water megamaser galaxies
• The Mysterious Merger of NGC6868 and NGC6861 in the Telescopium Group
• Disk Assembly and the M_BH-sigma Relation of Supermassive Black Holes
• The Blackhole-Dark Matter Halo Connection
• A search for active galactic nuclei in low-mass compact galaxies
• The scaling relation between the mass of supermassive black holes and the kinetic energy of random motions of the host galaxies
• M - sigma relation between SMBHs and the velocity dispersion of globular cluster systems
• Dark matter and no dark matter: On the halo mass of NGC 1052
• AGN Activity and Black Hole Masses in Low Surface Brightness Galaxies
• Destructible Bars in Disk Galaxies under the Dynamical Influence of a Massive Central Black Hole
• A Near Infrared View of Nearby Galaxies: The Case of NGC 6300
• The ultraviolet flare at the center of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4278
• Characterization of a sample of intermediate-type AGN. II. Host Bulge Properties and Black Hole Mass Estimates
• Unveiling a 36 Billion Solar Mass Black Hole at the Centre of the Cosmic Horseshoe Gravitational Lens
• Digging process in NGC 6951: the molecular disc bumped by the jet
• Stringent limits on the masses of the supermassive black holes in seven nearby galaxies
• Time Variable Broad Line Emission in NGC 4203: Evidence for Stellar Contrails
• A catalogue of nuclear stellar velocity dispersions of nearby galaxies from H$\alpha$ STIS spectra to constrain supermassive black hole masses
• A study of the scaling relation $M_{\bullet }\propto R_e{\sigma }^3$ for supermassive black holes and an update of the corresponding theoretical model
• Active galactic nucleus feedback in NGC 3982
• Black Holes in 4 Nearby Radio Galaxies
• Cosmic quenching and scaling laws for the evolution of supermassive black holes and host galaxies