ALMA Measures a Supermassive Black Hole Mass

The dynamics of HCN and HCO+ in the inner few hundred parsecs of the nearby Type-1 Seyfert galaxy NGC 1097 have enabled the authors to determine a supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass of 1.4 x 10⁸ M_⊙. The measured SMBH mass is in good agreement with the SMBH mass and bulge velocity dispersion relationship. This result showcases ALMA’s potential for deriving accurate SMBH masses, especially for nearby late-type galaxies.

View Paper: A Measurement of the Black-Hole Mass in NGC 1097 Using ALMA, Kyoko Onishi (Sokendai, NAOJ), Satoru Iguchi (Sokendai, NAOJ), Kartik Sheth (NRAO), and Kotaro Kohno (Tokyo), 2015 ApJ, 806, 39 (10 June 2015).

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The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Green Bank Observatory are facilities of the U.S. National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.