The Supermassive Black Hole at the Heart of Centaurus A: Revealed by Gas- and Stellar Kinematics

Abstract

At less than 4 Mpc distance the radio galaxy NGC 5128 (Centaurus A) is the prime example to study the supermassive black hole and its influence on the environment in great detail. To model and understand the feeding and feedback mechanisms one needs an accurate determination of the mass of the supermassive black hole. The aim of this review is to give an overview of the recent studies that have been dedicated to measure the black hole mass in Centaurus A from both gas and stellar kinematics. It shows how the advancement in observing techniques and instrumentation drive the field of black hole mass measurements and concludes that adaptive optics assisted integral field spectroscopy is the key to identify the effects of the AGN on the surrounding ionised gas. Using data from SINFONI at the ESO Very Large Telescope, the best-fit black hole mass is M_BH=4.5 +1.7/-1.0 x 10^7 Msolar (from H_2 kinematics) and M_BH= (5.5 +/- 3.0) x 10^7 Msolar (from stellar kinematics; both with 3 sigma errors). This is one of the cleanest gas vs star comparison of a M_BH determination, and brings Centaurus A into agreement with the M_BH-sigma relation.

8 pages, accepted for publication in PASA, contribution for "The Many Faces of Centaurus A" conference in Sydney, 2009

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• The Distance to NGC 5128 (Centaurus A)
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Cited by in corpus (41)

• An expanded M_bh-sigma diagram, and a new calibration of active galactic nuclei masses
• Galaxy Masses
• The (black hole mass)-(host spheroid luminosity) relation at high and low masses, the quadratic growth of black holes, and intermediate-mass black hole candidates
• Event Horizon Telescope observations of the jet launching and collimation in Centaurus A
• TANAMI monitoring of Centaurus A: The complex dynamics in the inner parsec of an extragalactic jet
• Radio observations of active galactic nuclei with mm-VLBI
• How old are the stars in the halo of NGC 5128 (Centaurus A)?
• Jet collimation in NGC 315 and other nearby AGN
• The extended Planetary Nebula Spectrograph (ePN.S) early-type galaxy survey. The kinematic diversity of stellar halos and the relation between halo transition scale and stellar mass
• Do Circumnuclear Dense Gas Disks Drive Mass Accretion onto Supermassive Black Holes?
• The radio continuum structure of Centaurus A at 1.4 GHz
• LLAMA: The $M_{BH}$ - ${\sigma }_{\star }$ Relation of the most luminous local AGNs
• BASS XXVI: DR2 Host Galaxy Stellar Velocity Dispersions
• Tomographic-spectral approach for dark matter detection in the cross-correlation between cosmic shear and diffuse gamma-ray emission
• Radio Galaxies at VHE energies
• Dual-frequency VLBI study of Centaurus A on sub-parsec scales
• Evidence for nuclear radio jet and its structure down to <100 Schwarzschild radii in the center of the Sombrero galaxy (M 104, NGC 4594)
• One-zone SSC model for the core emission of Centaurus A revisited
• Globular clusters and supermassive black holes in galaxies: further analysis and a larger sample
• Giant Lobes of Centaurus A Radio Galaxy Observed with the Suzaku X-ray Satellite
• Short Timescale AGN X-ray Variability with EXOSAT: Black hole mass and Normalised Variability Amplitude
• The jet/wind outflow in Centaurus A: a local laboratory for AGN feedback
• Active Galactic Nuclei as potential Sources of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays
• Planck revealed bulk motion of Centaurus A lobes
• Discovery of Limb Brightening in the Parsec-scale Jet of NGC 315 through Global Very Long Baseline Interferometry Observations and Its Implications for Jet Models
• The outflow of gas from the Centaurus A circumnuclear disk: atomic spectral line maps from Herschel-PACS and APEX
• ALMA Observations of the Physical and Chemical Conditions in Centaurus A
• Can observations of 511 keV line from the M31 galaxy shed light on the AGN jet composition?
• Testing the linear relationship between black hole mass and variability timescale in low-luminosity AGN at submillimeter wavelengths
• A multi-frequency study of sub-parsec jets with the Event Horizon Telescope
• An imaging and spectroscopic study of the planetary nebulae in NGC 5128 (Centaurus A): Planetary nebulae catalogues
• Signatures of leptophilic t-channel dark matter from active galactic nuclei
• The multi-phase environment in the centre of Centaurus A
• WIggle Corrector Kit for NIRSpEc Data: WICKED
• The 1.4 mm core of Centaurus A: First VLBI results with the South Pole Telescope
• The Kinematics and Ionization of Nuclear Gas Clouds in Centaurus A
• Hard X-ray emission in Centaurus A
• The Subparsec-scale Structure and Evolution of Centaurus A. III. A Multi-Epoch Spectral And Polarimetric VLBA Study
• A STIS Atlas of CaII Triplet Absorption Line Kinematics in Galactic Nuclei
• Astrophysical Evidence of Wakefield Acceleration in Galactic and Extragalactic Jets via Gamma Rays and UHECRs
• Blazar-Boosted Dark Matter: Novel Signatures via Elastic and Inelastic Scattering