Kinematics of 10 Early‐Type Galaxies fromHubble Space Telescopeand Ground‐based Spectroscopy
- 20 October 2003
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Astronomical Society in The Astrophysical Journal
- Vol. 596 (2) , 903-929
- https://doi.org/10.1086/378118
Abstract
We present stellar kinematics for a sample of 10 early-type galaxies observed using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope and the Modular Spectrograph on the MDM Observatory 2.4 m telescope. These observations are a part of an ongoing program to understand the coevolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. Our spectral ranges include either the calcium triplet absorption lines at 8498, 8542, and 8662 Å or the Mg b absorption at 5175 Å. The lines are used to derive line-of-sight velocity distributions (LOSVDs) of the stars using a maximum penalized likelihood method. We use Gauss-Hermite polynomials to parameterize the LOSVDs and find predominantly negative h4 values (boxy distributions) in the central regions of our galaxies. One galaxy, NGC 4697, has significantly positive central h4 (high tail weight). The majority of galaxies have a central velocity dispersion excess in the STIS kinematics over ground-based velocity dispersions. The galaxies with the strongest rotational support, as quantified with vmax/σSTIS, have the smallest dispersion excess at STIS resolution. The best-fitting, general, axisymmetric dynamical models (described in a companion paper) require black holes in all cases, with masses ranging from 106.5 to 109.3 M☉. We replot these updated masses on the MBH-σ relation and show that the fit to only these 10 galaxies has a slope consistent with the fits to larger samples. The greatest outlier is NGC 2778, a dwarf elliptical with relatively poorly constrained black hole mass. The two best candidates for pseudobulges, NGC 3384 and NGC 7457, do not deviate significantly from the established relation between MBH and σ. Neither do the three galaxies that show the most evidence of a recent merger, NGC 3608, NGC 4473, and NGC 4697.Keywords
All Related Versions
This publication has 92 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Counterrotating Core and the Black Hole Mass of IC 1459The Astrophysical Journal, 2002
- Evidence of a Supermassive Black Hole in the Galaxy NGC 1023 from the Nuclear Stellar DynamicsThe Astrophysical Journal, 2001
- The Northern ROSAT All‐Sky (NORAS) Galaxy Cluster Survey. I. X‐Ray Properties of Clusters Detected as Extended X‐Ray SourcesThe Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2000
- Kinematics of the Nuclear Ionized Gas in the Radio Galaxy M84 (NGC 4374)The Astrophysical Journal, 1998
- The Centers of Early-Type Galaxies With HST. II. Empirical Models and Structural ParametersThe Astronomical Journal, 1996
- The shape of the luminosity profiles of bulges of spiral galaxiesMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1995
- Line-of-sight velocity distributions of elliptical galaxiesMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1994
- Velocity mapping and models of the elliptical galaxies NGC 720, NGC 1052, and NGC 4697The Astrophysical Journal, 1990
- Measures of location and scale for velocities in clusters of galaxies - A robust approachThe Astronomical Journal, 1990
- Dynamics of early type galaxies. I - The rotation curve of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4697The Astrophysical Journal, 1975