English

Evidence for a Massive Black Hole in the S0 Galaxy NGC 4342

Astrophysics 2009-10-31 v1

Abstract

We have constructed axisymmetric dynamical models of the edge-on S0 galaxy NGC 4342: simple two-integral Jeans models as well as fully general, three-integral models using a modified version of Schwarzschild's orbit superposition technique. The two-integral models suggest a black hole (BH) of 3 or 6×108M6\times 10^8 M_\odot, depending on the data set. The three-integral models can fit all ground-based and HST data simultaneously, but only when a central BH is included. Models without BH are ruled out at better than 99.73% confidence level. We determine a BH mass of 3.01.0+1.7×108M3.0^{+1.7}_{-1.0} \times 10^8 M_\odot. This corresponds to 2.6% of the bulge mass, making NGC 4342 one of the galaxies with the highest BH mass to bulge mass ratio currently known.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9811180,
  title  = {Evidence for a Massive Black Hole in the S0 Galaxy NGC 4342},
  author = {Nicolas Cretton and Frank C. van den Bosch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9811180},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 figures (2 color). Contributed Talk at "Galaxy Dynamics", Rutgers University, New Jersey, August 8-12, 1998