TY - JOUR
T1 - Refining the mass estimate for the intermediate-mass black hole candidate in NGC 3319
AU - Davis, Benjamin L.
AU - Graham, Alister W.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to Jonah Gannon, who provided valuable expertise with the spectroscopic analysis. We appreciate the useful feedback from Nathan Leigh and we thank Roberto Soria for valuable discussion and insights about the X-ray properties of NGC 3319∗. BLD thanks David Nelson for the use of his secluded office space during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research was supported by the Australian Research Council’s funding scheme DP17012923. Parts of this research were conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), through project number CE170100004. This material is based upon work supported by Tamkeen under the NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute grant CAP3. This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System, and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) and Infrared Science Archive (IRSA). We acknowledge the use of the HyperLeda database (http://leda.univ-lyon1.fr). We made use of the DS9 visualisation tool (Joye & Mandel 2003), part of NASA’s High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) software.
Funding Information:
Acknowledgements. The authors are grateful to Jonah Gannon, who provided valuable expertise with the spectroscopic analysis. We appreciate the useful feedback from Nathan Leigh and we thank Roberto Soria for valuable discussion and insights about the X-ray properties of NGC 3319∗. BLD thanks David Nelson for the use of his secluded office space during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research was supported by the Australian Research Council’s funding scheme DP17012923. Parts of this research were conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), through project number CE170100004. This material is based upon work supported by Tamkeen under the NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute grant CAP3. This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System, and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) and Infrared Science Archive (IRSA). We acknowledge the use of the HyperLeda database (http://leda.univ-lyon1.fr). We made use of the DS9 visualisation tool (Joye & Mandel 2003), part of NASA’s High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) software.
Publisher Copyright:
The Author(s), 2021.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Recent X-ray observations by Jiang et al. have identified an active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the bulgeless spiral galaxy NGC 3319, located just 14.3 ± 1.1 Mpc away, and suggest the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH; 102 ≤ M•/M☉ ≤ 105) if the Eddington ratios are as high as 3 to 3 × 10-3. In an effort to refine the black hole mass for this (currently) rare class of object, we have explored multiple black hole mass scaling relations, such as those involving the (not previously used) velocity dispersion, logarithmic spiral arm pitch angle, total galaxy stellar mass, nuclear star cluster mass, rotational velocity, and colour of NGC 3319, to obtain 10 mass estimates, of differing accuracy. We have calculated a mass of 3.14+7.02-2.20 × 104 M☉, with a confidence of 84% that it is ≤105 M☉, based on the combined probability density function from seven of these individual estimates. Our conservative approach excluded two black hole mass estimates (via the nuclear star cluster mass and the fundamental plane of black hole activity—which only applies to black holes with low accretion rates) that were upper limits of ∼105 M☉, and it did not use the M•–L2-10 keV relation’s prediction of ∼105 M☉. This target provides an exceptional opportunity to study an IMBH in AGN mode and advance our demographic knowledge of black holes. Furthermore, we introduce our novel method of meta-analysis as a beneficial technique for identifying new IMBH candidates by quantifying the probability that a galaxy possesses an IMBH.
AB - Recent X-ray observations by Jiang et al. have identified an active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the bulgeless spiral galaxy NGC 3319, located just 14.3 ± 1.1 Mpc away, and suggest the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH; 102 ≤ M•/M☉ ≤ 105) if the Eddington ratios are as high as 3 to 3 × 10-3. In an effort to refine the black hole mass for this (currently) rare class of object, we have explored multiple black hole mass scaling relations, such as those involving the (not previously used) velocity dispersion, logarithmic spiral arm pitch angle, total galaxy stellar mass, nuclear star cluster mass, rotational velocity, and colour of NGC 3319, to obtain 10 mass estimates, of differing accuracy. We have calculated a mass of 3.14+7.02-2.20 × 104 M☉, with a confidence of 84% that it is ≤105 M☉, based on the combined probability density function from seven of these individual estimates. Our conservative approach excluded two black hole mass estimates (via the nuclear star cluster mass and the fundamental plane of black hole activity—which only applies to black holes with low accretion rates) that were upper limits of ∼105 M☉, and it did not use the M•–L2-10 keV relation’s prediction of ∼105 M☉. This target provides an exceptional opportunity to study an IMBH in AGN mode and advance our demographic knowledge of black holes. Furthermore, we introduce our novel method of meta-analysis as a beneficial technique for identifying new IMBH candidates by quantifying the probability that a galaxy possesses an IMBH.
KW - Black hole physics
KW - Galaxies: Active
KW - Galaxies: Evolution
KW - Galaxies: Individual: NGC 3319
KW - Galaxies: Spiral
KW - Galaxies: Structure
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122534321&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85122534321&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/pasa.2021.23
DO - 10.1017/pasa.2021.23
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85122534321
SN - 1323-3580
VL - 38
JO - Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
JF - Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
M1 - e030
ER -