WISDOM Project -- XXV. Improving the CO-dynamical supermassive black hole mass measurement in the galaxy NGC 1574 using high spatial resolution ALMA observations

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Auteurs principaux: Zhang, Hengyue, Bureau, Martin, Ruffa, Ilaria, Davis, Timothy A., Dominiak, Pandora, Elford, Jacob S., Lelli, Federico, Williams, Thomas G.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Zhang, Hengyue
Bureau, Martin
Ruffa, Ilaria
Davis, Timothy A.
Dominiak, Pandora
Elford, Jacob S.
Lelli, Federico
Williams, Thomas G.
author_facet Zhang, Hengyue
Bureau, Martin
Ruffa, Ilaria
Davis, Timothy A.
Dominiak, Pandora
Elford, Jacob S.
Lelli, Federico
Williams, Thomas G.
contents We present a molecular gas dynamical supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass measurement in the nearby barred lenticular galaxy NGC 1574, using Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array observations of the $^{12}$CO(2-1) emission line with synthesised beam full-widths at half-maximum of $0.''078\times0.''070$ ($\approx7.5\times6.7$ pc$^2$). The observations are the first to spatially resolve the SMBH's sphere of influence (SoI), resulting in an unambiguous detection of the Keplerian velocity increase due to the SMBH towards the centre of the gas disc. We also detect a previously known large-scale kinematic twist of the CO velocity map, due to a position angle (PA) warp and possible mild non-circular motions, and we resolve a PA warp within the central $0.''2\times0.''2$ of the galaxy, larger than that inferred from previous intermediate-resolution data. By forward modelling the data cube, we infer a SMBH mass of $(6.2\pm1.2)\times10^7$ M$_\odot$ ($1σ$ confidence interval), slightly smaller than but statistically consistent with the SMBH mass derived from the previous intermediate-resolution data that did not resolve the SoI, and slightly outside the $1σ$ scatter of the SMBH mass -- stellar velocity dispersion relation. Our measurement thus emphasises the importance of observations that spatially resolve the SMBH SoI for accurate SMBH mass measurements and gas dynamical modelling.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_10662
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle WISDOM Project -- XXV. Improving the CO-dynamical supermassive black hole mass measurement in the galaxy NGC 1574 using high spatial resolution ALMA observations
Zhang, Hengyue
Bureau, Martin
Ruffa, Ilaria
Davis, Timothy A.
Dominiak, Pandora
Elford, Jacob S.
Lelli, Federico
Williams, Thomas G.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We present a molecular gas dynamical supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass measurement in the nearby barred lenticular galaxy NGC 1574, using Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array observations of the $^{12}$CO(2-1) emission line with synthesised beam full-widths at half-maximum of $0.''078\times0.''070$ ($\approx7.5\times6.7$ pc$^2$). The observations are the first to spatially resolve the SMBH's sphere of influence (SoI), resulting in an unambiguous detection of the Keplerian velocity increase due to the SMBH towards the centre of the gas disc. We also detect a previously known large-scale kinematic twist of the CO velocity map, due to a position angle (PA) warp and possible mild non-circular motions, and we resolve a PA warp within the central $0.''2\times0.''2$ of the galaxy, larger than that inferred from previous intermediate-resolution data. By forward modelling the data cube, we infer a SMBH mass of $(6.2\pm1.2)\times10^7$ M$_\odot$ ($1σ$ confidence interval), slightly smaller than but statistically consistent with the SMBH mass derived from the previous intermediate-resolution data that did not resolve the SoI, and slightly outside the $1σ$ scatter of the SMBH mass -- stellar velocity dispersion relation. Our measurement thus emphasises the importance of observations that spatially resolve the SMBH SoI for accurate SMBH mass measurements and gas dynamical modelling.
title WISDOM Project -- XXV. Improving the CO-dynamical supermassive black hole mass measurement in the galaxy NGC 1574 using high spatial resolution ALMA observations
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.10662