Measuring Stellar Kinematics in Nearby Galaxies Using Gemini NIFS with Adaptive Optics

Autor(en)
Kate Pitchford, Jonelle L. Walsh, Zhilong Wang, Joanne Tan, Sabine Thater, Christian Lambert
Abstrakt

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(en)
Institut für Astrophysik
Externe Organisation(en)
Texas A&M University, Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik
Journal
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society
Band
56
ISSN
0002-7537
Publikationsdatum
02-2024
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
103003 Astronomie, 103004 Astrophysik
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/f2164b90-7950-4e9d-bbdc-20e950929b3e