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Do black hole masses scale with classical bulge luminosities only? The case of the two composite pseudo-bulge galaxies NGC 3368 and NGC 3489

Journal

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 403, Issue 2, Pages 646-672

Publisher

OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.16167.x

Keywords

galaxies: bulges; galaxies: individual: NGC 3368; galaxies: individual: NGC 3489; galaxies: kinematics and dynamics

Funding

  1. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

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It is now well established that all galaxies with a massive bulge component harbour a central supermassive black hole (SMBH). The mass of the SMBH correlates with bulge properties such as the bulge mass and the velocity dispersion, which implies that the bulge and the central BH of a galaxy have grown together during the formation process. As part of an investigation of the dependence of the SMBH mass on bulge types and formation mechanisms, we present measurements of SMBH masses in two pseudo-bulge galaxies. The spiral galaxy NGC 3368 is double-barred and hosts a large pseudo-bulge with a tiny classical bulge component at the very centre. The S0 galaxy NGC 3489 has only a weak large-scale bar, a small pseudo-bulge and a small classical bulge. Both galaxies show weak nuclear activity in the optical, indicative of the presence of an SMBH. We present high-resolution, adaptive-optics-assisted, near-IR integral-field data of these two galaxies, taken with SINFONI at the Very Large Telescope, and use axisymmetric orbit models to determine the masses of the SMBHs. The SMBH mass of NGC 3368, averaged over the four quadrants, is << M-center dot >> = 7.5 x 106 M-circle dot with an error of 1.5 x 106 M-circle dot, which mostly comes from the non-axisymmetry in the data. For NGC 3489, a solution without a BH cannot be excluded when modelling the SINFONI data alone, but can be clearly ruled out when modelling a combination of SINFONI, OASIS and SAURON data, for which we obtain M-center dot = (6.00+0.56(-0.54) vertical bar(stat) +/- 0.64 vertical bar(sys)) x 106 M-circle dot. Although both galaxies seem to be consistent with the M-center dot-Sigma relation, at face value they do not agree with the relation between bulge magnitude and BH mass when the total bulge magnitude (i.e. including both classical bulge and pseudo-bulge) is considered; the agreement is better when only the small classical bulge components are considered. However, taking into account the ageing of the stellar population could change this conclusion.

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