Supermassive Black Holes from the SUNNS survey

Abstract

We report three new accurate mass measurements for the supermassive black holes hosted by the early-type disk galaxies NGC2787, NGC4459 and NGC4596. The targets were selected from a larger set of long-slit spectra obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope as part of the Survey of Nearby Nuclei with STIS (SUNNS). They display symmetric gas velocity curves that could be modeled as a rotating disk in the joint potential of the stellar bulge and a putative central black hole. They also show regular dust lane patterns that could be used to infer the nuclear disk orientation. These three galaxies fall in the black-hole mass vs. central stellar velocity dispersion plane in agreement with the recently reported relation between these two quantities.