Search Publications

Are Nuclear Star Clusters the Precursors of Massive Black Holes?

Neumayer, Nadine; Walcher, C. Jakob

We present new upper limits for black hole masses in extremely late type spiral galaxies. We confirm that this class of galaxies has black holes with masses less than 10^6 Msolar, if any. We also derive new upper limits for nuclear star cluster (NC) masses in massive galaxies with previously determined black hole masses. We use the newly derived u…

Do Nuclear Star Clusters and Supermassive Black Holes Follow the Same Host-Galaxy Correlations?

Erwin, Peter; Gadotti, Dimitri Alexei

Studies have suggested that there is a strong correlation between the masses of nuclear star clusters (NSCs) and their host galaxies, a correlation which said to be an extension of the well-known correlations between supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their host galaxies. But careful analysis of disk galaxies -- including 2D bulge/disk/bar decom…

The Low-Mass End of the MBH/Mhost Relation in Quasars

Uslenghi, Michela; Decarli, Roberto; Treves, Aldo +3 more

The Mbh-Mhost relation in quasars has been probed only in a limited parameter space, namely at Mbh~10^9 Msun and Mhost~10^12 Msun. Here we present a study of 26 quasars lying in the low-mass end of the relation, down to Mbh~10^7 Msun. We selected quasars from the SDSS and HST-FOS archives, requiring modest Mbh (as derived through the virial paradi…

M94 as a Unique Testbed for Black Hole Mass Estimates and AGN Activity at Low Luminosities

Seth, Anil C.; Constantin, Anca

We discuss the peculiar nature of the nucleus of M94 (NGC 4736) in the context of new measurements of the broad H_alpha emission from HST-STIS observations. We show that this component is unambiguously associated with the high-resolution X-ray, radio, and variable UV sources detected at the optical nucleus of this galaxy. These multi-wavelength ob…