Further evidence for a supermassive black hole mass-pitch angle relation
- Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, 825 West Dickson Street, Fayetteville, AR 72701 (United States)
- Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, University of Arkansas, 202 Old Field House, Fayetteville, AR 72701 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2801 South University Avenue, Little Rock, AR 72204 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303 (United States)
We present new and stronger evidence for a previously reported relationship between galactic spiral arm pitch angle P (a measure of the tightness of spiral structure) and the mass M {sub BH} of a disk galaxy's nuclear supermassive black hole (SMBH). We use an improved method to accurately measure the spiral arm pitch angle in disk galaxies to generate quantitative data on this morphological feature for 34 galaxies with directly measured black hole masses. We find a relation of log (M/M {sub ☉}) = (8.21 ± 0.16) – (0.062 ± 0.009)P. This method is compared with other means of estimating black hole mass to determine its effectiveness and usefulness relative to other existing relations. We argue that such a relationship is predicted by leading theories of spiral structure in disk galaxies, including the density wave theory. We propose this relationship as a tool for estimating SMBH masses in disk galaxies. This tool is potentially superior when compared to other methods for this class of galaxy and has the advantage of being unambiguously measurable from imaging data alone.
- OSTI ID:
- 22342063
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 769, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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