Related papers: Measuring Black Hole Masses Using Ionized Gas Kine…
We describe a method to identify inclined water maser disks orbiting massive black holes and to potentially use them to measure black hole masses. Due to the geometry of maser amplification pathways, the minority of water maser disks are…
Strong mass loss off stars at the tip of the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) profoundly affects properties of these stars and their surroundings, including the subsequent planetary nebula (PN) stage. With this study we wanted to determine…
A new statistical method for pinpointing the massive black hole (BH) in the Galactic Center on the IR grid is presented and applied to astrometric IR observations of stars close to the BH. This is of interest for measuring the IR emission…
We quantify the performance of mass mapping techniques on mock imaging and gravitational lensing data of galaxy clusters. The optimum method depends upon the scientific goal. We assess measurements of clusters' radial density profiles,…
The discovery of gravitational waves from compact objects coalescence opens a brand-new window to observe the universe. With more events being detected in the future, statistical examinations would be essential to better understand the…
We present a stellar dynamical mass measurement of the supermassive black hole in the elliptical (E1) galaxy NGC 3258. Our findings are based on integral field unit spectroscopy from the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) observations…
The most compelling evidences for the existence of stellar-mass black holes have been obtained through observations of X-ray binary systems. The application of classical methods and the development of new techniques have allowed us to…
The EHT has captured a series of images of black holes. These images could provide valuable information about the gravitational environment near the event horizon. However, accurate detection and parameter estimation for candidate black…
It is shown how laboratory experiments performed with high intensity femtosecond lasers can probe the physics of black holes in the near-horizon regime. The acceleration generated by the high intensity laser ranging from $10^{13}$g to more…
The S0 galaxy NGC 3245 contains a circumnuclear disk of ionized gas and dust with a radius of 1.1" (110 pc), making it an ideal target for dynamical studies with the Hubble Space Telescope. We have obtained spectra of the nuclear disk with…
NGC 6240 is a pair of colliding disk galaxies, each with a black hole in its core. We have used laser guide star adaptive optics on the Keck II telescope to obtain high-resolution ($\sim 0.06$") near-infrared integral-field spectra of the…
We present a theoretical model for the ionized disk in M87 which includes spiral shock waves. The line emission profiles computed from this model at various positions on the disk are found to be in agreement with the recent Hubble Space…
We try to identify the sources and systematics of the uncertainty of the masses of the central black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) which have been obtained by reverberation-mapping methods. We characterize the broad H$\beta$…
The mass measurement of galaxy clusters is an important tool for the determination of cosmological parameters describing the matter and energy content of the Universe. However, the standard methods rely on various assumptions about the…
We present a new stellar dynamical mass measurement of the black hole in the nearby, S0 galaxy NGC 3998. By combining laser guide star adaptive optics observations obtained with the OH-Suppressing Infrared Imaging Spectrograph on the Keck…
The masses of the central black holes in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) can be estimated using the broad emission-lines as a probe of the virial mass. Using reverberation mapping to determine the size of the Broad Line Region (BLR) and the…
The masses of supermassive black holes in broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can be measured through reverberation mapping, but this method currently cannot be applied to very large samples or to high-redshift AGNs. As a practical…
The peculiar elliptical galaxy IC 1459 (M_V = -21.19, D = 16.5 Mpc) has a fast counterrotating stellar core, stellar shells and ripples, a blue nuclear point source and strong radio core emission. We present results of a detailed HST study…
Satellite kinematics can be used to probe the masses of dark matter haloes of central galaxies. In order to measure the kinematics with sufficient signal-to-noise, one uses the satellite galaxies of a large number of central galaxies…
Gravitational wave observations will be excellent tools for making precise measurements of processes that occur in very strong-field regions of spacetime. Extreme mass ratio systems, formed by the capture of a stellar mass body compact by a…