Detecting Low-Mass Supermassive Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to detect low-mass supermassive black holes in quiet spiral galaxies by identifying faint nuclear activity through X-ray and multi-wavelength observations, successfully applied to two galaxy examples.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining X-ray and multi-wavelength data to uncover supermassive black holes in late-type, quiescent galaxies, demonstrating its effectiveness on specific cases.

Findings

NGC 3184 hosts an active galactic nucleus (AGN).

NGC 5457 shows signs of nuclear activity consistent with an AGN.

The method proves effective in detecting low-mass supermassive black holes.

Abstract

We demonstrate the feasibility of uncovering supermassive black holes in late-type, quiescent spiral galaxies by detecting signs of very low-level nuclear activity. We use a combination of x-ray selection and multi-wavelength follow-up. Here, we apply this technique to NGC 3184 and NGC 5457, both of type Scd, and show that strong arguments can be made that both host AGNs.