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Upper limits on the mass of supermassive black holes from HST/STIS archival data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2006

E. M. Corsini
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
A. Beifiori
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
E. Dalla Bontà
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
A. Pizzella
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
L. Coccato
Affiliation:
Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
M. Sarzi
Affiliation:
Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
F. Bertola
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
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Abstract

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The growth of supermassive black holes (SBHs) appears to be closely linked with the formation of spheroids. There is a pressing need to acquire better statistics on SBH masses, since the existing samples are preferentially weighted toward early-type galaxies with very massive SBHs. With this motivation we started a project aimed at measuring upper limits on the mass of the SBHs in the center of all the nearby galaxies (D < 100 Mpc) for which STIS/G750M spectra are available in the HST archive. These upper limits will be derived by modeling the central emission-line widths observed in the Hα region over an aperture of ∼0.1″. Here we present our results for a subsample of 22 S0-Sb galaxies within 20 Mpc.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2007

References

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