Measuring Stellar Kinematics in Nearby Galaxies Using Gemini NIFS with Adaptive Optics
- Author(s)
- Kate Pitchford, Jonelle L. Walsh, Zhilong Wang, Joanne Tan, Sabine Thater, Christian Lambert
- Abstract
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) play essential roles in galaxy evolution, as evidenced by correlations between their masses and various large-scale galaxy properties. Roughly 100 dynamical SMBH masses have been measured, but in galaxies with smaller sizes for a given luminosity compared to the local galaxy population. We aim to address this bias through our Gemini Large and Long Program (LLP), in which we target a wider range of galaxies with diverse evolutionary histories using the Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer (NIFS) with adaptive optics in the K-band. To date, twelve galaxies from the LLP have been observed with NIFS. We will present their stellar kinematics, derived from the CO bandheads using the penalized pixel-fitting method, and the uncertainties, determined from Monte Carlo simulations. In the future, the NIFS kinematics will be combined with Hubble Space Telescope imaging and wide-field kinematics from McDonald Observatory data to obtain stellar-dynamical SMBH masses for this sample of galaxies.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Astrophysics
- External organisation(s)
- Texas A&M University, Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik
- Journal
- Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society
- Volume
- 56
- ISSN
- 0002-7537
- Publication date
- 02-2024
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103003 Astronomy, 103004 Astrophysics
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/f2164b90-7950-4e9d-bbdc-20e950929b3e