The Megamaser Cosmology Project. III. Accurate Masses of Seven Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galaxies with Circumnuclear Megamaser Disks

TL;DR

This study uses water maser observations in active galaxies to precisely measure supermassive black hole masses, confirming their dominance over stellar clusters and refining mass estimates with high accuracy.

Contribution

The paper presents high-resolution VLBI imaging and kinematic analysis of water masers in seven active galaxies, providing the most accurate supermassive black hole mass measurements to date.

Findings

Black hole masses range from 0.76 to 6.5×10^7 solar masses.

High central densities exclude stellar clusters as the central mass.

Virial mass estimates are consistent but less precise.

Abstract

Observations of H$_2$O 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 $\sim0.3$ 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 $\times 10^{10} M_{\odot}$~pc$^{-3}$. 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 6.5$\times$10$^7 M_{\odot}$. The BH mass errors are $\approx11$\%, 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 $\langle f \rangle$, but the virial mass uncertainty is much greater. MCP observations continue and we expect to obtain more maser BH masses in the future.