Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 770, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/770/2/86
Keywords
galaxies: active; galaxies: individual (M87, NGC 4486); galaxies: kinematics and dynamics; galaxies: nuclei
Categories
Funding
- NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship [1102845]
- Space Telescope Science Institute [12162]
- NASA [NAS 5-26555]
- NSF [AST-1108835]
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1102845, 1108835] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/F009186/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- STFC [ST/F009186/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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The supermassive black hole of M87 is one of the most massive black holes known and has been the subject of several stellar and gas-dynamical mass measurements; however, the most recent revision to the stellar-dynamical black hole mass measurement is a factor of about two larger than the previous gas-dynamical determinations. Here, we apply comprehensive gas-dynamical models that include the propagation of emission-line profiles through the telescope and spectrograph optics to new Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. Unlike the previous gas-dynamical studies of M87, we map out the complete kinematic structure of the emission-line disk within similar to 40 pc from the nucleus, and find that a small amount of velocity dispersion internal to the gas disk is required to match the observed line widths. We examine a scenario in which the intrinsic velocity dispersion provides dynamical support to the disk, and determine that the inferred black hole mass increases by only 6%. Incorporating this effect into the error budget, we ultimately measure a mass of M-BH = (3.5(-0.7)(+0.9)) x 10(9)M circle dot (68% confidence). Our gas-dynamical black hole mass continues to differ from the most recent stellar-dynamical mass by a factor of two, underscoring the need for carrying out more cross-checks between the two main black hole mass measurement methods.
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