A Black Hole Mass Measurement from Adaptive Optics Spectroscopy for the Compact Galaxy Mrk 1216
Abstract
Over the past decade it has become increasingly clear that supermassive black holes are essential components of galaxies, as demonstrated by the correlations connecting black hole masses and large-scale galaxy properties. Gaining a deeper understanding of the physical mechanisms that drive such relations requires the measurement of black holes in a wider range of galaxy types with diverse evolutionary histories. In this talk, we focus on the nearby, early-type, compact galaxy Mrk 1216. Using integral field spectroscopy assisted by adaptive optics from the Gemini North telescope and Hubble Space Telescope imaging observations, along with orbit-based dynamical models, we find a black hole mass of 5 billion solar masses. The black hole in Mrk 1216 is well above the expectations from the local black hole mass - bulge luminosity relation. With remarkable similarities to the z~2 quiescent galaxies, Mrk 1216 may be a passively evolved descendant, and perhaps reflects a previous time when galaxies contained over-massive black holes and the growth of host galaxies had yet to catch up.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #229
- Pub Date:
- January 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AAS...22910705W