Following Black Hole Scaling Relations Through Gas-Rich Mergers

Abstract

We present black hole mass measurements from kinematic modeling of high-spatial resolution integral field spectroscopy of the inner regions of 9 nearby (ultra-)luminous infrared galaxies in a variety of merger stages. These observations were taken with OSIRIS and laser guide star adaptive optics on the Keck I and Keck II telescopes, and reveal gas and stellar kinematics inside the spheres of influence of these supermassive black holes. We find that this sample of black holes are overmassive ($\sim 10^{7-9}$ M${}_{Sun}$) compared to the expected values based on black hole scaling relations, and suggest that the major epoch of black hole growth occurs in early stages of a merger, as opposed to during a final episode of quasar-mode feedback. The black hole masses presented are the dynamical masses enclosed in $\sim$25pc, and could include gas which is gravitationally bound to the black hole but has not yet lost sufficient angular momentum to be accreted. If present, this gas could in principle eventually fuel AGN feedback or be itself blown out from the system.

accepted to ApJ

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• The Role of AGN in Luminous Infrared Galaxies from the Multiwavelength Perspective
• The Complex Gaseous and Stellar environments of the nearby dual AGN Mrk 739
• How to Fuel an AGN: Mapping Circumnuclear Gas in NGC 6240 with ALMA
• MOSEL and IllustrisTNG: Massive Extended Galaxies at z=2 Quench Later Than Normal-size Galaxies
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