Related papers: The benchmark black hole in NGC 4258: dynamical mo…
SHORT VERSION: The rapidly rotating, masing circumnuclear disk in the central sub-parsec region of the galaxy NGC 4258 is remarkably circular and Keplerian, yet a striking asymmetry appears in the maser spectrum: the red-shifted, high-…
We investigate the accuracy and precision of triaxial dynamical orbit models by fitting two dimensional mock observations of a realistic N-body merger simulation resembling a massive early-type galaxy with a supermassive black hole (SMBH).…
By using direct N-body numerical simulations, we model the dynamical co-evolution of two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the surrounding stars in merging galaxies. In order to investigate how different stellar components evolve during…
Different massive black hole mass - host galaxy scaling relations suggest that the growth of massive black holes is entangled with the evolution of their host galaxies. The number of measured black hole masses is still limited, and…
We present integral field spectroscopic observations of the central region of the active galaxy NGC 4258 obtained with the fibre IFU system INTEGRAL. We have been able to detect cold neutral gas by means of the interstellar NaD doublet…
We present HST STIS observations of the galaxy NGC 4382 (M85) and axisymmetric models of the galaxy to determine mass-to-light ration (M/L, V-band) and central black hole mass (M_BH). We find M/L = 3.74 +/- 0.1 (solar units) and M_BH = 1.3…
Globular clusters are an excellent laboratory for stellar population and dynamical research. Recent studies have shown that these stellar systems are not as simple as previously assumed. With multiple stellar populations as well as outer…
Massive black holes (MBHs) with a mass below ~ 1e7 Msun are likely to reside at the centre of dense stellar nuclei shaped by 2-body relaxation, close interactions with the MBH and direct collisions. In this contribution, we stress the role…
Massive nuclear black holes of 10^6 - 10^9 solar masses are believed to be responsible for the the energy production in quasars and active galaxies, and are thought to be present in many quiescent galaxies as well. Dynamical evidence for…
We use a restricted sample of elliptical galaxies, whose kinematical parameters inside the semimajor axis were calculated correcting the effect of the integration of the light along the line of sight, in order to analyze a possible…
In the nearby galaxy NGC 4258, the well-modeled orbital motion of H$_2$O masers about its supermassive black hole provides the means to measure a precise geometric distance. As a result, NGC 4258 is one of a few "geometric anchors"…
Using cosmological simulations with a dynamic range in excess of 10 million, we study the transport of gas mass and angular momentum through the circumnuclear region of a disk galaxy containing a supermassive black hole (SMBH). The…
Using different kinds of velocity tracers derived from the broad H$\beta$ profile (in the mean or rms spectrum) and the corresponding virial factors $f$, the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) masses ($M_{\rm BH}$) are calculated for a…
The inner ~200 pc region of the Milky Way contains a nuclear stellar disc and a nuclear star cluster that are embedded in the larger Galactic bar. These stellar systems overlap spatially, which makes it challenging to separate stars that…
We present new CRIRES spectroscopic observations of BrGamma in the nuclear region of the Circinus galaxy, obtained with the aim of measuring the black hole (BH) mass with the spectroastrometric technique. The Circinus galaxy is an ideal…
Understanding the coevolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies requires tracing their growth over time. Mass measurements of distant black holes have been limited to active nuclei and commonly rely on spatially unresolved…
We obtained adaptive-optics assisted SINFONI observations of the central regions of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC5419 with a spatial resolution of 0.2 arcsec ($\approx 55$ pc). NGC5419 has a large depleted stellar core with a radius of…
We reason that, without physical fine-tuning, neither the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) nor the stellar bulges can self-regulate or inter-regulate by driving away already fallen cold gas to produce the observed correlation between them.…
We present a Chandra study of the hot ISM in the giant elliptical galaxy NGC4649. In common with other group-centred ellipticals, its temperature profile rises with radius in the outer parts of the galaxy, from ~0.7keV at 2kpc to ~0.9keV by…
Dynamical modelling can be used to constrain the masses of central black holes; however, modelling massive galaxies is challenging due to their complexity. In this work, we report six new supermassive black hole mass measurements of massive…