Disky elliptical galaxies and the allegedly over-massive black hole in the compact massive `ES' galaxy NGC 1271

Abstract

While spiral and lenticular galaxies have large-scale disks extending beyond their bulges, and most local early-type galaxies with 10^{10} < M_*/M_Sun < 2x10^{11} contain a disk (e.g., ATLAS^3D), the early-type galaxies do possess a range of disk sizes. The edge-on, `intermediate-scale' disk in the `disky elliptical' galaxy NGC 1271 has led to some uncertainty as to what its spheroidal component is. Walsh et al. reported a directly measured black hole mass of 3x10^9 M_Sun for this galaxy; which they remarked was an order of magnitude greater than what they expected based on their derivation of the host spheroid's luminosity. Our near-infrared image analysis supports a small embedded disk within a massive spheroidal component with M_{sph,*} = (0.9+/-0.2)x10^{11} M_Sun (using M_*/L_H = 1.4 from Walsh et al.). This places NGC 1271 just 1.6-sigma above the near-linear M_bh-M_{sph,*} relation for early-type galaxies. Therefore, past speculation that there may be a systematic difference in the black hole scaling relations between compact massive early-type galaxies with intermediate-scale disks, i.e. ES galaxies such as NGC 1271, and early-type galaxies with either no substantial disk (E) or a large-scale disk (S0) is not strongly supported by NGC 1271. We additionally (i) show how ES galaxies fit naturally in the (`bulge'-to-total)-(morphological type) diagram, while noting a complication with recent revisions to the Hubble-Jeans tuning-fork diagram, (ii) caution about claims of over-massive black holes in other ES galaxies if incorrectly modelled as S0 galaxies, and (iii) reveal that the compact massive spheroid in NGC 1271 has properties similar to bright bulges in other galaxies which have grown larger-scale disks.

Accepted for publication in ApJ. First submitted to ApJ on the 9th of July, 2015. 13 pages including 7 figures and many references

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Cited by in corpus (18)

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• Appreciating mergers for understanding the non-linear $M_{\mathrm{bh}}$-$M_{\ast ,\mathrm{spheroid}}$ and $M_{\mathrm{bh}}$-$M_{\ast ,\mathrm{galaxy}}$ relations, updated herein, and the implications for the (reduced) role of AGN feedback
• Kinematics of Simulated Galaxies II: Probing the Stellar Kinematics of Galaxies out to Large Radii
• Implications for the origin of dwarf early-type galaxies: a detailed look at the isolated rotating dwarf early-type galaxy CG 611, with ramifications for the Fundamental Plane's (S_K)^2 kinematic scaling and the spin-ellipticity diagram
• A Black Hole Mass Determination for the Compact Galaxy Mrk 1216
• Defining the (Black Hole)-Spheroid Connection with the Discovery of Morphology-Dependent Substructure in the $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--${\mathrm{n}}_{\mathrm{sph}}$ and $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--${\mathrm{R}}_{\mathrm{e},\mathrm{sph}}$ Diagrams: New Tests for Advanced Theories and Realistic Simulations
• $R_{\mathrm{e}}$. I. Understanding galaxy sizes, associated luminosity densities, and the artificial division of the early-type galaxy population
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• Galaxy And Mass Assembly: Automatic Morphological Classification of Galaxies Using Statistical Learning
• An ALMA Gas-dynamical Mass Measurement of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Local Compact Galaxy UGC 2698
• Galaxies with monstrous black holes in galaxy cluster environments
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• Disc cloaking: Establishing a lower limit to the number density of local compact massive spheroids/bulges and the potential fate of some high-z red nuggets
• The nuclear activity and central structure of the elliptical galaxy NGC 5322
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• The size--mass and other structural parameter ($n,{\mu }_z,R_z$) relations for local bulges/spheroids from multicomponent decompositions
• Early-Type Galaxies: Elliptical and S0 Galaxies, or Fast and Slow Rotators
• Elliptical (E) and ellicular (ES) galaxies in the M_bh-M_*,sph diagram, and a merger-driven explanation for the origin of ES galaxies, anti-truncated stellar discs in lenticular galaxies, and the Sersicification of E galaxy light profiles