Unveiling a 36 Billion Solar Mass Black Hole at the Centre of the Cosmic Horseshoe Gravitational Lens

Abstract

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are found at the centre of every massive galaxy, with their masses tightly connected to their host galaxies through a co-evolution over cosmic time. For massive ellipticals, the SMBH mass ($M_{\text{BH}}$) strongly correlates with the central stellar velocity dispersion (${\sigma }_e$), via the $M_{\text{BH}}-{\sigma }_e$ relation. However, SMBH mass measurements have traditionally relied on central stellar dynamics in nearby galaxies ($z<0.1$), limiting our ability to explore the SMBHs across cosmic time. In this work, we present a self-consistent analysis combining 2D stellar dynamics and lens modelling of the Cosmic Horseshoe gravitational lens system ($z=0.44$), one of the most massive galaxies ever observed. Using integral-field spectroscopic data from MUSE and high-resolution imaging from HST, we model the radial arc and stellar kinematics, constraining the galaxy's central mass distribution and SMBH mass. Bayesian model comparison yields a $5\sigma$ detection of an ultramassive black hole (UMBH) with ${\log }_{10}(M_{\text{BH}}/M_{\odot })=10.56_{-0.08}^{+0.07}\pm (0.12{)}^{\text{sys}}$, consistent across various systematic tests. Our findings place the Cosmic Horseshoe $\sim$$1.5\sigma$ above the $M_{\text{BH}}-{\sigma }_e$ relation, supporting an emerging trend observed in BGCs and other massive galaxies. This suggests a steeper $M_{\text{BH}}-{\sigma }_e$ relationship at the highest masses, potentially driven by a different co-evolution of SMBHs and their host galaxies. Future surveys will uncover more radial arcs, enabling the detection of SMBHs over a broader redshift and mass range. These discoveries will further refine our understanding of the $M_{\text{BH}}-{\sigma }_e$ relation and its evolution across cosmic time.

arXiv comment20 pages, 12 figures, 8 tables. Accepted for publication at MNRAS

References in corpus (81)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters
• A Universal Density Profile from Hierarchical Clustering
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• The Demography of Massive Dark Objects in Galaxy Centres
• dynesty: A Dynamic Nested Sampling Package for Estimating Bayesian Posteriors and Evidences
• Parametric Recovery of Line-of-Sight Velocity Distributions from Absorption-Line Spectra of Galaxies via Penalized Likelihood
• The Relation between Black Hole Mass, Bulge Mass, and Near-Infrared Luminosity
• The M-sigma and M-L Relations in Galactic Bulges and Determinations of their Intrinsic Scatter
• Adaptive spatial binning of integral-field spectroscopic data using Voronoi tessellations
• Response of dark matter halos to condensation of baryons: cosmological simulations and improved adiabatic contraction model
• The SAURON project -- IX. A kinematic classification for early-type galaxies
• An ultra-luminous quasar with a twelve-billion-solar-mass black hole at redshift 6.30
• The Atlas3D project - XV. Benchmark for early-type galaxies scaling relations from 260 dynamical models: mass-to-light ratio, dark matter, Fundamental Plane and Mass Plane
• Gaia Data Release 2: Catalogue validation
• On the black hole - bulge mass relation in active and inactive galaxies
• Measuring the inclination and mass-to-light ratio of axisymmetric galaxies via anisotropic Jeans models of stellar kinematics
• Efficient Multi-Gaussian Expansion of galaxies
• Dynamical family properties and dark halo scaling relations of giant elliptical galaxies
• The dependence of dark matter profiles on the stellar to halo mass ratio: a prediction for cusps vs cores
• The Stellar Initial Mass Function in Early-Type Galaxies From Absorption Line Spectroscopy. II. Results
• Black Hole Mass Estimates from Reverberation Mapping and from Spatially Resolved Kinematics
• The Absolute Magnitude of the Sun in Several Filters
• Two ten-billion-solar-mass black holes at the centres of giant elliptical galaxies
• H0LiCOW - IX. Cosmographic analysis of the doubly imaged quasar SDSS 1206+4332 and a new measurement of the Hubble constant
• The AGN Black Hole Mass Database
• The population of galaxy-galaxy strong lenses in forthcoming optical imaging surveys
• The size - virial radius relation of galaxies
• The Mass-Concentration-Redshift Relation of Cold and Warm Dark Matter Halos
• CMasher: Scientific colormaps for making accessible, informative and 'cmashing' plots
• MIUSCAT: extended MILES spectral coverage. I. Stellar populations synthesis models
• AGN-driven quenching of star formation: morphological and dynamical implications for early-type galaxies
• The Relation Between Quasar and Merging Galaxy Luminosity Functions and the Merger-Induced Star Formation Rate of the Universe
• Unleashing Positive Feedback: Linking the Rates of Star Formation, Supermassive Black Hole Accretion and Outflows in Distant Galaxies
• A Bayesian analysis of regularised source inversions in gravitational lensing
• Unification of the Fundamental Plane and Super-Massive Black Holes Masses
• Semi-linear gravitational lens inversion
• AGN feedback and triggering of star formation in galaxies
• A precise extragalactic test of General Relativity
• The SL2S Galaxy-scale Lens Sample. V. Dark Matter Halos and Stellar IMF of Massive Early-type Galaxies out to Redshift 0.8
• Gravitational Lens Statistics for Generalized NFW Profiles: Parameter Degeneracy and Implications for Self-Interacting Cold Dark Matter
• A 17-billion-solar-mass black hole in a group galaxy with a diffuse core
• On The Linearity of The Black Hole - Bulge Mass Relation in Active and in Nearby Galaxies
• Dynamical Measurements of Black Hole Masses in Four Brightest Cluster Galaxies at 100 Mpc
• AutoLens: Automated Modeling of a Strong Lens's Light, Mass and Source
• The Cosmic Horseshoe: Discovery of an Einstein Ring around a Giant Luminous Red Galaxy
• The Dynamical Fingerprint of Core Scouring in Massive Elliptical Galaxies
• The SWELLS survey. IV. Precision measurements of the stellar and dark matter distributions in a spiral lens galaxy
• Present and future evidence for evolving dark energy
• A correlation between central supermassive black holes and the globular cluster systems of early-type galaxies
• The X-Shooter Lens Survey - I. Dark-Matter Domination and a Salpeter-type IMF in a Massive Early-type Galaxy
• A 40-billion solar mass black hole in the extreme core of Holm 15A, the central galaxy of Abell 85
• Models of the Cosmic Horseshoe Gravitational Lens
• Efficient solution of the anisotropic spherically-aligned axisymmetric Jeans equations of stellar hydrodynamics for galactic dynamics
• PyAutoLens: Open-Source Strong Gravitational Lensing
• The elliptical power law profile lens
• The mass and angular momentum distribution of simulated massive early-type galaxies to large radii
• Upper Limits on the Masses of 105 Supermassive Black Holes from Hubble Space Telescope/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph Archival Data
• Arc Statistics
• On the hunt for ultramassive black holes in brightest cluster galaxies
• MIUSCAT: extended MILES spectral coverage. II. Constraints from optical photometry
• Correlation Between the Total Gravitating Mass of Groups and Clusters and the Supermassive Black Hole Mass of Brightest Galaxies
• Modelling simple stellar populations in the near-ultraviolet to near-infrared with the X-shooter Spectral Library (XSL)
• Automated galaxy-galaxy strong lens modelling: no lens left behind
• The Mass of Quasars
• A universal relation between the properties of supermassive black holes, galaxies, and dark matter halos
• The inner dark matter distribution of the Cosmic Horseshoe (J1148+1930) with gravitational lensing and dynamics
• Globular clusters and supermassive black holes in galaxies: further analysis and a larger sample
• The MASSIVE SURVEY XVI. The Stellar Initial Mass Function in the Center of MASSIVE Early-Type Galaxies
• Abell 1201: Detection of an Ultramassive Black Hole in a Strong Gravitational Lens
• Mapping UV Properties Throughout the Cosmic Horseshoe: Lessons from VLT-MUSE
• Constraining the multi-scale dark-matter distribution in CASSOWARY 31 with strong gravitational lensing and stellar dynamics
• Auto-identification of unphysical source reconstructions in strong gravitational lens modelling
• BASS. XXXVI. Constraining the Local Supermassive Black Hole - Halo Connection with BASS DR2 AGN
• Stellar dynamics in the strong-lensing central galaxy of Abell 1201: A low stellar mass-to-light ratio, a large central compact mass, and a standard dark matter halo
• Euclid Quick Data Release (Q1): The Strong Lensing Discovery Engine A -- System overview and lens catalogue
• A counter-image to the gravitational arc in Abell 1201: Evidence for IMF variations, or a $10^{10}$M${}_{\odot }$ black hole?
• A spiral galaxy's mass distribution uncovered through lensing and dynamics
• Probing General Relativity in galactic scales at z $\sim 0.3$

Cited by in corpus (3)

• The revolution in strong lensing discoveries from Euclid
• A Salpeter IMF and an NFW halo: Disentangling the dark and stellar mass of an elliptical galaxy through precise lens modelling of a double-source-plane system
• Shadows of Giants: Constraints on Stupendously Large Black Holes from Negative Sources against the Cosmic Microwave Background