Mass of the Southern Black Hole in NGC 6240 from Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics

TL;DR

This study measures the mass of the supermassive black hole in NGC 6240's southern nucleus using high-resolution adaptive optics spectroscopy, providing insights into black hole growth during galaxy mergers.

Contribution

First direct measurement of the black hole mass in NGC 6240's southern nucleus using adaptive optics and stellar kinematics.

Findings

Black hole mass upper limit: 2.0 ± 0.2 × 10^9 M_sun

Lower limit for black hole mass: 8.7 ± 0.3 × 10^8 M_sun

Black hole mass consistent with the M-σ relation in a merging galaxy

Abstract

NGC 6240 is a pair of colliding disk galaxies, each with a black hole in its core. We have used laser guide star adaptive optics on the Keck II telescope to obtain high-resolution ($\sim 0.06$") near-infrared integral-field spectra of the region surrounding the supermassive black hole in the south nucleus of this galaxy merger. We use the K-band CO absorption bandheads to trace stellar kinematics. We obtain a spatial resolution of about 20 pc and thus directly resolve the sphere of gravitational influence of the massive black hole. We explore two different methods to measure the black hole mass. Using a Jeans Axisymmetric Multi-Gaussian mass model, we investigate the limit that a relaxed mass distribution produces all of the measured velocity dispersion, and find an upper limit on the black hole mass at $2.0 \pm 0.2 \times 10^9 M_{\sun}$. When assuming the young stars whose spectra we observe remain in a thin disk, we compare Keplerian velocity fields to the measured two-dimensional velocity field measured and fit for a mass profile containing a black hole point mass plus a radially-varying spherical component, which suggests a lower limit for the black hole mass of $8.7 \pm 0.3 \times 10^8 M_{\sun}$. Our measurements of the stellar velocity dispersion place this AGN within the scatter of the $M_{BH}$-$\sigma_{*}$ relation. As NGC 6240 is a merging system, this may indicate that the relation is preserved during a merger at least until the final coalescence of the two nuclei.