The Black Hole Mass And Extreme Orbital Structure In NGC 1399

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Date

2007-12

Authors

Gebhardt, Karl
Lauer, Tod R.
Pinkney, Jason
Bender, Ralf
Richstone, Douglas
Aller, Monique
Bower, Gary
Dressler, Alan
Faber, S. M.
Filippenko, Alexei V.

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Abstract

The largest galaxies, and in particular central galaxies in clusters, offer unique insight into understanding the mechanism for the growth of nuclear black holes. We present Hubble Space Telescope kinematics for NGC 1399, the central galaxy in Fornax. We find the best-fit model contains a black hole of (5.1 +/- 0: 7) x 10(8) M-circle dot (at a distance of 21.1 Mpc), a factor of over 2 below the correlation of black hole mass and velocity dispersion. We also find a dramatic signature for central tangential anisotropy. The velocity profiles on adjacent sides 0.5 '' away from the nucleus show strong bimodality, and the central spectrum shows a large drop in the dispersion. Both of these observations point to an orbital distribution that is tangentially biased. The best-fit orbital model suggests a ratio of the tangential to radial internal velocity dispersions of 3. This ratio is the largest seen in any galaxy to date and will provide an important measure for the mode by which the central black hole has grown.

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Gebhardt, Karl, Tod R. Lauer, Jason Pinkney, Ralf Bender, Douglas Richstone, Monique Aller, Gary Bower et al. "The black hole mass and extreme orbital structure in NGC 1399." The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 671, No. 2 (Dec., 2007): 1321.