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Black Hole

Lensing of space time around a black hole. At Oxford we study black holes observationally and theoretically on all size and time scales - it is some of our core work.

Credit: ALAIN RIAZUELO, IAP/UPMC/CNRS. CLICK HERE TO VIEW MORE IMAGES.

Michele Cappellari

Professor of Astrophysics

Research theme

  • Astronomy and astrophysics

Sub department

  • Astrophysics

Research groups

  • Galaxy formation and evolution
  • Extremely Large Telescope
michele.cappellari@physics.ox.ac.uk
Telephone: 01865 (2)73647
Denys Wilkinson Building, room 755
  • About
  • Publications

WISDOM Project - III: Molecular gas measurement of the supermassive black hole mass in the barred lenticular galaxy NGC4429

(2017)

Authors:

Timothy A Davis, Martin Bureau, Kyoko Onishi, Freeke van de Voort, Michele Cappellari, Satoru Iguchi, Lijie Liu, Eve V North, Marc Sarzi, Mark D Smith
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WISDOM Project – III: Molecular gas measurement of the supermassive black hole mass in the barred lenticular galaxy NGC4429

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press 473:3 (2017) 3818-3834

Authors:

TA Davis, Martin Bureau, K Onishi, FVD Voort, Michele Cappellari, S Iguchi, Lijie Liu, EV North, M Sarzi, Mark D Smith

Abstract:

As part of the mm-Wave Interferometric Survey of Dark Object Masses project we present an estimate of the mass of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the nearby fast-rotating early-type galaxy NGC4429, that is barred and has a boxy/peanut-shaped bulge. This estimate is based on Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) cycle-2 observations of the 12CO(3-2) emission line with a linear resolution of ≈13 pc (0.18 arcsec × 0.14 arcsec). NGC4429 has a relaxed, flocculent nuclear disc of molecular gas that is truncated at small radii, likely due to the combined effects of gas stability and tidal shear. The warm/dense 12CO(3-2) emitting gas is confined to the inner parts of this disc, likely again because the gas becomes more stable at larger radii, preventing star formation. The gas disc has a low velocity dispersion of 2.2+0.68−0.65 km s−1. Despite the inner truncation of the gas disc, we are able to model the kinematics of the gas and estimate a mass of (1.5 ± 0.1+0.15−0.35) × 108 M⊙ for the SMBH in NGC4429 (where the quoted uncertainties reflect the random and systematic uncertainties, respectively), consistent with a previous upper limit set using ionized gas kinematics. We confirm that the V-band mass-to-light ratio changes by ≈30 per cent within the inner 400 pc of NGC4429, as suggested by other authors. This SMBH mass measurement based on molecular gas kinematics, the sixth presented in the literature, once again demonstrates the power of ALMA to constrain SMBH masses.
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Detection of Enhanced Central Mass-to-Light Ratios in Low-Mass Early-Type Galaxies: Evidence for Black Holes?

(2017)

Authors:

Renuka Pechetti, Anil Seth, Michele Cappellari, Richard McDermid, Mark den Brok, Steffen Mieske, Jay Strader
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The KMOS Cluster Survey (KCS). I. The fundamental plane and the formation ages of cluster galaxies at redshift 1.4 < Z < 1.6

Astrophysical Journal American Astronomical Society 846:2 (2017) 1-25

Authors:

A Beifiori, JT Mendel, JCC Chan, RP Saglia, R Bender, Michele Cappellari, Roger L Davies, A Galametz, Ryan CW Houghton, Laura J Prichard, R Smith, John P Stott, DJ Wilman, Ian J Lewis, R Sharples, M Wegner

Abstract:

The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. We present the analysis of the fundamental plane (FP) for a sample of 19 massive red-sequence galaxies (M· > ×4 10 10 M·) in three known overdensities at 1.39 1.61 < < z from the K-band Multi-object Spectrograph (KMOS) Cluster Survey, a guaranteed-time program with spectroscopy from the KMOS at the VLT and imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope. As expected, we find that the FP zero-point in B band evolves with redshift, from the value 0.443 of Coma to -0.10±0.09, -0.19±0.05, and -0.29±0.12 for our clusters at z = 1.39, z = 1.46, and z = 1.61, respectively. For the most massive galaxies (log 1 M M· > 1) in our sample, we translate the FP zero-point evolution into a mass-to-light-ratio M/L evolution, finding D log 0.46 0.10 M L z B = - (D log )0.52 0.07 M L z B = -to(D log ) 0.55 0.10 M L z B = - respectively. We assess the potential contribution of the galaxy structural and stellar velocity dispersion evolution to the evolution of the FP zero-point and find it to be ∼6%-35% of the FP zero-point evolution. The rate of M/L evolution is consistent with galaxies evolving passively. Using single stellar population models, we find an average age of 2.33- +0.51 0.86 Gyr for the log 1 M M· > 1 galaxies in our massive and virialized cluster at z = 1.39,1.59- +0.62 1.40 Gyr in a massive but not virialized cluster at z = 1.46, and 1.20- +0.47 1.03 Gyr in a protocluster at z = 1.61. After accounting for the difference in the age of the universe between redshifts, the ages of the galaxies in the three overdensities are consistent within the errors, with possibly a weak suggestion that galaxies in the most evolved structure are older.
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The KMOS Cluster Survey (KCS) I: The fundamental plane and the formation ages of cluster galaxies at redshift $1.4

(2017)

Authors:

Alessandra Beifiori, J Trevor Mendel, Jeffrey CC Chan, Roberto P Saglia, Ralf Bender, Michele Cappellari, Roger L Davies, Audrey Galametz, Ryan CW Houghton, Laura J Prichard, Russel Smith, John P Stott, David J Wilman, Ian J Lewis, Ray Sharples, Michael Wegner
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