Extremely Large Telescope

Abstract:

In the past decade, most effort in the study of supermassive black holes (BHs) has been devoted to measuring their masses. This led to the finding of the tight M-BH-sigma relation, which indicates the existence of strong links between the formation of the BHs and of their host spheroids. Many scenarios have been proposed to explain this relation, and all agree on the key role of BHs' growth and feedback in shaping their host galaxies. However, the currently available observational constraints, essentially BH masses and galaxy photometry, are not sufficient to conclusively select among the alternatives. A crucial piece of information on black-hole formation is recorded in the orbital distribution of the stars, which can only be extracted from high-resolution integral-field (IF) stellar kinematics. The introduction of IF spectrographs with adaptive optics on large telescopes opens a new era in the study of BHs by finally allowing this key element to be uncovered. This information will be complementary to what will be provided by the LISA gravitational wave satellite, which can directly detect coalescing BHs. Here, an example is presented for the recovery of the orbital distribution in the centre of the giant elliptical galaxy M87, which has a well-resolved BH sphere of influence, using SAURON IF kinematics.

Abstract:

Accurately determining the star formation history in NGC 4038/4039 -- ``The Antennae'' is hampered by extinction. We therefore used near infrared images obtained with ISAAC at the VLT and with SOFI at the NTT to determine the recent star formation history in this merger. In combination with archival HST data, we determined ages, extinction and other parameters for single star clusters, and properties of the cluster population as a whole. About 70% of the K_s-band detected star clusters with masses >= 10^5 M_sun are younger than 10 Myrs (approximately an e-folding time for cluster ages), which we interpret as evidence for rapid dissolution but not free expansion. The total mass of K-band selected clusters is about 5-10x10^8 M_sun and represents about 3-6% of the total molecular gas. This takes into account only the detected clusters and in view of the rapid dissolution means that this is only a lower limit to the total mass of stars produced in clusters during the burst. Studies of cluster formation in other galaxies recently suggested short cluster dissolution timescales, too, which means that star formation rates may have been severely underestimated in the past. Extinction is strongly variable and very high in some regions, but around A_V=1.3 mag on average. Even though most clusters are detected at least in I-band, only the information about individual cluster ages and extinction allows to avoid uncertainties of orders of magnitude in star formation rate estimates determined from optical fluxes. From the distribution of individual cluster extinction vs. age, which is significantly higher for clusters below 8-9 Myr than for older clusters, we infer that this is the time by which a typical cluster blows free of its native dust cocoon.