Related papers: No Supermassive Black Hole in M33?
Galaxies that contain bulges appear to contain central black holes whose masses correlate with the velocity dispersion of the bulge. We show that no corresponding relationship applies in the pure disk galaxy M33. Three-integral dynamical…
Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images and spectra of the nucleated dwarf elliptical galaxy NGC 205 are combined with 3-integral axisymmetric dynamical models to constrain the mass (M_BH) of a putative nuclear black hole. This is only the…
We report upper limits on the masses of black holes that can be present in the centers of 16 nearby galaxy bulges. These limits for our statistically complete sample were derived from the modeling of the central emission-line widths ([N II]…
We analyze a sample of 32 galaxies for which a dynamical estimate of the mass of the hot stellar component, M_bulge, is available. For each of these galaxies, we calculate the mass of the central black hole, M_BH, using the tight empirical…
We describe a correlation between the mass M_BH of a galaxy's central black hole and the luminosity-weighted line-of-sight velocity dispersion sigma_e within the half-light radius. The result is based on a sample of 26 galaxies, including…
This review outlines the observations that now provide an overwhelming scientific case that the center of our Milky Way Galaxy harbors a supermassive black hole. Observations at infrared wavelength trace stars that orbit about a common…
We analyze the nuclear stellar dynamics of the SB0 galaxy NGC 1023, utilizing observational data both from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope and from the ground. The stellar kinematics measured from…
Stellar-mass black holes are discovered in X-ray emitting binary systems, where their mass can be determined from the dynamics of their companion stars. Models of stellar evolution have difficulty producing black holes in close binaries…
Supermassive black holes are thought to be relics of quasars, and their numbers and masses are therefore related to the quasar luminosity function and its evolution with redshift. We have used the relationship between black hole mass and…
We present the spectrum of compact object masses: neutron stars and black holes that originate from single stars in different environments. In particular, we calculate the dependence of maximum black hole mass on metallicity and on some…
We analyse the current knowledge and uncertainties in detailed stellar evolution and wind modelling to evaluate the mass of the most massive stellar black hole (BH) at solar metallicity. Contrary to common expectations that it is the most…
The motions of gas and stars in the nuclei of nearby large galaxies have demonstrated that massive black holes are common and that their masses strongly correlate with the stellar velocity dispersion $\sigma_{\star}$ of the bulge. This…
Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) with expected masses M_BH ~ 10^4 M_sun are thought to bridge the gap between stellar mass black holes (M_BH ~ 3 - 100 M_sun) and supermassive black holes found at the centre of galaxies (M_BH > 10^6…
Located in the Perseus cluster, NGC 1271 is an early-type galaxy with a small effective radius of 2.2 kpc and a large stellar velocity dispersion of 276 km/s for its K-band luminosity of 8.9x10^{10} L_sun. We present a mass measurement for…
We present 1-second cadence observations of M32 (NGC221) with the CHIMERA instrument at the Hale 200-inch telescope of the Palomar Observatory. Using field stars as a baseline for relative photometry, we are able to construct a light curve…
We have investigated past measurements of the local supermassive black hole mass density, correcting for hitherto unknown dependencies on the Hubble constant, which, in some cases, had led to an underestimation of the mass density by…
Ultracompact dwarf galaxies (UCDs) are among the densest stellar systems in the universe. These systems have masses up to 200 million solar masses, but half light radii of just 3-50 parsecs. Dynamical mass estimates show that many UCDs are…
We present the detection of a 2.0(+1.4,-0.8)x10^4 solar mass black hole (BH) in the stellar cluster G1 (Mayall II), based on data taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. G1 is one of the most…
Based on the modeling of the central emission-line width measured over sub-arcsecond apertures with the Hubble Space Telescope, we present stringent upper bounds on the mass of the central supermassive black hole, MBH, for a sample of 105…
While large numbers of supermassive black holes have been detected at z>6, their origin is still essentially unclear. Numerical simulations have shown that the conditions for the classical direct collapse scenario are very restrictive and…