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Black Hole Mass Estimates from Reverberation Mapping and from Spatially Resolved Kinematics

Year: 2000
Type: article
Abstract: Black hole (BH) masses that have been measured by reverberation mapping in active galaxies fall significantly below the correlation between bulge luminosity and BH mass determined from spatially resolved kinematics of nearby normal galaxies. This discrepancy has created concern that one or both techniques suffer from systematic errors. We show that BH masses from reverberation mapping are consistent with the recently discovered relationship between BH mass and galaxy velocity dispersion. Therefore, the bulge luminosities are the probable source of the disagreement, not problems with either method of mass measurement. This result underscores the utility of the BH mass-velocity dispersion relationship. Reverberation mapping can now be applied with increased confidence to galaxies whose active nuclei are too bright or whose distances are too large for BH searches based on spatially resolved kinematics.
DOI: 10.1086/318174
Authors: Karl Gebhardt, John Kormendy, Luis C. Ho, Ralf Bender, Gary Bower, Alan Dressler, S. M. Faber, Alexei V. Filippenko, Richard Green, Carl Grillmair, Tod R. Lauer, John Magorrian, Jason Pinkney, Douglas Richstone, Scott Tremaine
Institutions: University of California, Santa Cruz, The University of Texas at Austin, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Observatories, University of California, Berkeley, University of Cambridge, University of Michigan, Princeton University
Language: English
Open Access status: bronze
Awards: G433322167, G4518818167, MASSIVE BLACK HOLES AND THE CENTERS OF GALAXIES ( LTSA98), G58316358, A MULTI-WAVELENGTH STUDY OF A COMPLETE SAMPLE OF N, G6273510985
OpenAlex ID: W1977218358
FWCI: 23.36
Cites: 38
Cited by: 454
Related to: 10