The overmassive black hole in NGC 1277: new constraints from molecular gas kinematics

Abstract

We report the detection of CO(1-0) emission from NGC 1277, a lenticular galaxy in the Perseus Cluster. NGC 1277 has previously been proposed to host an overmassive black hole (BH) compared to the galaxy bulge luminosity (mass), based on stellar-kinematic measurements. The CO(1-0) emission, observed with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI) using both, a more compact (2.9-arcsec resolution) and a more extended (1-arcsec resolution) configuration, is likely to originate from the dust lane encompassing the galaxy nucleus at a distance of 0.9 arcsec (~320 pc). The double-horned CO(1-0) profile found at 2.9-arcsec resolution traces $1.5\times 10^8{M}_{\odot }$ of molecular gas, likely orbiting in the dust lane at $\sim 550\mathrm{km}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, which suggests a total enclosed mass of $\sim 2\times 10^{10}{M}_{\odot }$. At 1-arcsec resolution, the CO(1-0) emission appears spatially resolved along the dust lane in east-west direction, though at a low signal-to-noise ratio. In agreement with the previous stellar-kinematic measurements, the CO(1-0) kinematics is found to be consistent with an $\sim 1.7\times 10^{10}{M}_{\odot }$ BH for a stellar mass-to-light ratio of $M/L_V=6.3$, while a less massive BH of $\sim 5\times 10^9{M}_{\odot }$ is possible when assuming a larger $M/L_V=10$. While the molecular gas reservoir may be associated with a low level of star formation activity, the extended 2.6-mm continuum emission is likely to originate from a weak AGN, possibly characterized by an inverted radio-to-millimetre spectral energy distribution. Literature radio and X-ray data indicate that the BH in NGC 1277 is also overmassive with respect to the Fundamental Plane of BH activity.

15 pages, 13 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS on 20 January 2016; updated version including minor changes and note added in proof

References in corpus (20)

• The GALEX Ultraviolet Atlas of Nearby Galaxies
• The Second-Generation Guide Star Catalog: Description and Properties
• How Mergers May Affect The Mass Scaling Relations Between Black Holes, Galaxies, and Other Gravitationally Bound Systems
• An Over-Massive Black Hole in the Compact Lenticular Galaxy NGC1277
• The Fundamental Plane of Accretion Onto Black Holes with Dynamical Masses
• The ATLAS3D Project - XXVIII. Dynamically-driven star formation suppression in early-type galaxies
• X-ray thermal coronae of galaxies in hot clusters -- ubiquity of embedded mini cooling cores
• The (black hole)-bulge mass scaling relation at low masses
• The SINFONI Nearby Elliptical Lens Locator Survey: Discovery of two new low-redshift strong lenses and implications for the initial mass function in giant early-type galaxies
• A black-hole mass measurement from molecular gas kinematics in NGC4526
• Massive relic galaxies challenge the co-evolution of SMBHs and their host galaxies
• The initial mass function of a massive relic galaxy
• A 5x10^9 Solar Mass Black Hole in NGC 1277 from Adaptive Optics Spectroscopy
• Molecular and atomic gas in dust lane early-type galaxies - I: Low star-formation efficiencies in minor merger remnants
• A Measurement of the Black-Hole Mass in NGC 1097 using ALMA
• MRK 1216 & NGC 1277 - An orbit-based dynamical analysis of compact, high velocity dispersion galaxies
• Overmassive black holes in the $M_{\mathrm{BH}}-\sigma$ diagram do not belong to over (dry) merged galaxies
• Explaining the reportedly over-massive black holes in early-type galaxies with intermediate-scale discs
• A figure of merit for black hole mass measurements with molecular gas
• A normal supermassive black hole in NGC 1277

Cited by in corpus (15)

• A 5x10^9 Solar Mass Black Hole in NGC 1277 from Adaptive Optics Spectroscopy
• The mm-wave compact component of AGN
• The most massive black holes on the Fundamental Plane of Black Hole Accretion
• The origin of compact galaxies with anomalously high black hole masses
• A normal supermassive black hole in NGC 1277
• Herschel Far-Infrared Photometry of the Swift Burst Alert Telescope Active Galactic Nuclei Sample of the Local Universe. II. SPIRE Observations
• Toward Precision Black Hole Masses with ALMA: NGC 1332 as a Case Study in Molecular Disk Dynamics
• A Black Hole Mass Determination for the Compact Galaxy Mrk 1216
• Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): Accurate number densities & environments of massive ultracompact galaxies at 0.02 < z < 0.3
• Dark matter concentrations in galactic nuclei according to polytropic models
• An ALMA Gas-dynamical Mass Measurement of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Local Compact Galaxy UGC 2698
• An evolutionary missing link? A modest-mass early-type galaxy hosting an over-sized nuclear black hole
• Discovery of five low luminosity active galactic nuclei at the centre of the Perseus cluster
• Ultra-massive black hole feedback in compact galaxies
• ZF-UDS-7329: A relic galaxy in the early Universe