The growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) appears to be closely linked with the formation of spheroids. There is a pressing need to acquire better statistics on SMBH masses, since the existing samples are preferentially weighted toward early-type galaxies with very massive SMBHs. With this motivation we started a project aimed at measuring upper limits on the mass of the SMBHs that can be present in the center of all the nearby galaxies (D<100 Mpc) for which STIS/G750M spectra are available in the HST archive. These upper limits will be derived by modeling the central emission-line widths ([N II]6548,6583, Halpha, and [S II]6716 ,6731) observed over an aperture of 0.1 arcsec (R<50 pc). Here we present our preliminary results for a subsample of 48 bulges.
Upper limits on the mass of supermassive black holes from HST/STIS archival data
BEIFIORI, ALESSANDRA
;CORSINI, ENRICO MARIA;DALLA BONTA', ELENA;PIZZELLA, ALESSANDRO;BERTOLA, FRANCESCO
2007
Abstract
The growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) appears to be closely linked with the formation of spheroids. There is a pressing need to acquire better statistics on SMBH masses, since the existing samples are preferentially weighted toward early-type galaxies with very massive SMBHs. With this motivation we started a project aimed at measuring upper limits on the mass of the SMBHs that can be present in the center of all the nearby galaxies (D<100 Mpc) for which STIS/G750M spectra are available in the HST archive. These upper limits will be derived by modeling the central emission-line widths ([N II]6548,6583, Halpha, and [S II]6716 ,6731) observed over an aperture of 0.1 arcsec (R<50 pc). Here we present our preliminary results for a subsample of 48 bulges.
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