pith. sign in

arxiv: astro-ph/0510278 · v1 · submitted 2005-10-10 · 🌌 astro-ph

The central kinematics of NGC 1399 measured with 14pc resolution

classification 🌌 astro-ph
keywords centralmodelsobservationskinematicsresolutionstronglyabsorptionadaptive
0
0 comments X
read the original abstract

We present near infra-red (NIR) adaptive optics assisted spectroscopic observations of the CO ($\Delta\mu=2$) absorption bands towards the centre of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1399. The observations were made with NAOS-CONICA (ESO VLT) and have a FWHM resolution of 0\farcs15 (14pc). Kinematic analysis of the observations reveals a decoupled core and strongly non-Gaussian line-of-sight velocity profiles (VPs) in the central 0.2 arcsec (19pc). NIR imaging also indicates an asymmetric elongation of the central isophotes in the same region. We use spherical orbit-superposition models to interpret the kinematics, using a set of orthogonal ``eigenVPs'' that allow us to fit models directly to spectra. The models require a central black hole of mass $1.2^{+0.5}_{-0.6}\times10^9M_\odot$, with a strongly tangentially biased orbit distribution in the inner 40pc.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.