2 research outputs found
The Megamaser Cosmology Project. III. Accurate Masses of Seven Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galaxies with Circumnuclear Megamaser Disks
Observations of HO masers from circumnuclear disks in active galaxies for
the Megamaser Cosmology Project allow accurate measurement of the mass of
supermassive black holes (BH) in these galaxies. We present the Very Long
Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) images and kinematics of water maser emission in
six active galaxies: NGC~1194, NGC~2273, NGC~2960 (Mrk~1419), NGC~4388,
NGC~6264 and NGC~6323. We use the Keplerian rotation curves of these six
megamaser galaxies, plus a seventh previously published, to determine accurate
enclosed masses within the central pc of these galaxies, smaller than
the radius of the sphere of influence of the central mass in all cases. We also
set lower limits to the central mass densities of between 0.12 and 60 ~pc. For six of the seven disks, the high central
densities rule out clusters of stars or stellar remnants as the central
objects, and this result further supports our assumption that the enclosed mass
can be attributed predominantly to a supermassive black hole. The seven BHs
have masses ranging between 0.76 and 6.510. The BH mass
errors are \%, dominated by the uncertainty of the Hubble constant.
We compare the megamaser BH mass determination with other BH mass measurement
techniques. The BH mass based on virial estimation in four galaxies is
consistent with the megamaser BH mass given the latest empirical value of
, but the virial mass uncertainty is much greater. MCP
observations continue and we expect to obtain more maser BH masses in the
future.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures. This paper has been submitted to ApJ. An updated
version of this paper will be posted when it gets accepte