English

Black holes and central surface brightness cusps

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

HST observations show that the surface brightness profiles of early-type galaxies have central cusps. I summarize here the results of van der Marel (1999), which show that the observed characteristics of these cusps are consistent with the hypothesis that all early-type galaxies have central black holes (BHs) that grew adiabatically in homogeneous isothermal cores. The models suggest a roughly linear correlation between BH mass and V-band galaxy luminosity, log M_BH = -1.83 + log L in solar units, similar to the relation suggested by kinematical BH detections in nearby galaxies.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9811025,
  title  = {Black holes and central surface brightness cusps},
  author = {R. P. van der Marel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9811025},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

4 pages, LaTeX, with 3 PostScript figures. Contributed paper to `Galaxy Dynamics', ASP Conference Series, 1999

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