Related papers: Systematic Errors in the Estimation of Black Hole …
In this small review we present the actual state the knowledge about weighting black holes. Black holes can be found in stellar binary systems in our Galaxy and in other nearby galaxies, in globular clusters, which we can see in our and…
We derive the theoretical distribution function of black hole masses by studying the formation processes of black holes. We use the results of recent 2D simulations of core-collapse to obtain the relation between remnant and progenitor…
Black hole masses are tightly correlated with the stellar velocity dispersions of the bulges which surround them, and slightly less-well correlated with the bulge luminosity. It is common to use these correlations to estimate the expected…
Due to the non-axisymmetric potential of the central bar, barred spiral galaxies form, in addition to their characteristic arms and bar, a variety of structures within the thin gas disk, like nuclear rings, inner spirals and dust-lanes.…
Gravitational wave observations of binary black holes have revealed unexpected structure in the black hole mass distribution. Previous studies of the mass distribution employ physically-motivated phenomenological models and infer the…
The latest analysis efforts in reverberation mapping are beginning to allow reconstruction of echo images (or velocity-delay maps) that encode information about the structure and kinematics of the broad line region (BLR) in active galactic…
The broadening of atomic emission lines by high-velocity motion of gas near accreting supermassive black holes is an observational hallmark of quasars. Observations of broad emission lines could potentially constrain the mechanism for…
The massive elliptical galaxy M87 has been the subject of several supermassive black hole mass measurements from stellar dynamics, gas dynamics, and recently the black hole shadow by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). This uniquely…
We present the results of a reverberation campaign targeting MGC-06-30-15. Spectrophotometric monitoring and broad-band photometric monitoring over the course of 4 months in the spring of 2012 allowed a determination of a time delay in the…
Estimating black hole masses of blazars is still a big challenge. Because of the contamination of jets, using the previously suggested size -- continuum luminosity relation can overestimate the broad line region (BLR) size and black hole…
We developed a theoretical model able to give a common origin to the correlations between the mass of supermassive black holes and the mass, velocity dispersion, kinetic energy and momentum parameter of the corresponding host galaxies. Our…
We model the dynamical structure of M87 (NGC4486) using high spatial resolution long-slit observations of stellar light in the central regions, two-dimensional stellar light kinematics out to half of the effective radius, and globular…
We use dynamical mass measurements of 16 black holes in transient low-mass X-ray binaries to infer the stellar black hole mass distribution in the parent population. We find that the observations are best described by a narrow mass…
Parameter estimation of binary-black-hole merger events in gravitational-wave data relies on matched-filtering techniques, which, in turn, depend on accurate model waveforms. Here we characterize the systematic biases introduced in…
We report first results from a large project to measure black hole (BH) mass in high accretion rate active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Such objects may be different from other AGNs in being powered by slim accretion disks and showing saturated…
A few dark matter substructures have recently been detected in strong gravitational lenses though their perturbations of highly magnified images. We derive a characteristic scale for lensing perturbations and show that this is significantly…
It has long been thought that black hole accretion flows are driven by magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, and there are now many general relativistic global simulations illustrating the dynamics of this process. However, many challenges…
We review past work using broad emission lines as virial estimators of black hole masses in quasars. Basically one requires estimates of the emitting region radius and virial velocity dispersion to obtain black hole masses. The three major…
Accretion disk reflection spectra, including broad iron emission lines, bear the imprints of the strong Doppler shifts and gravitational red-shifts close to black holes. The extremity of these shifts depends on the proximity of the…
For type-1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) for which the equatorial scattering is the dominant broad line polarization mechanism, it is possible to measure the supermassive black hole mass by tracing the Keplerian motion across the…