Physics – Optics
Scientific paper
Jul 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009hst..prop12163b&link_type=abstract
HST Proposal ID #12163. Cycle 18
Physics
Optics
Scientific paper
HST surveys have shown that nuclear star clusters are nearly ubiquitous in late-type, bulgeless disk galaxies. In early-type galaxies, the central black hole mass correlates with the bulge mass and velocity dispersion, but the relationship between black hole mass and host galaxy properties in bulgeless galaxies is not yet understood. Some nuclear clusters {such as the one in M33} do not contain a central massive black hole at all, while other late-type galaxies {such as NGC 4395} are known to contain accretion-powered active nuclei within their nuclear clusters, indicating that a central black hole is present. But, the overall "occupation fraction" of black holes within nuclear clusters is largely unconstrained. Measurement of the structure, dynamics, and stellar content of nuclear star clusters is an important pathway toward understanding the demographics of low-mass black holes in late-type galaxies.We propose to obtain multi-filter WFC3 UV, optical, and near-IR images of 10 of the nearest and brightest nuclear clusters in late-type spiral galaxies. We will use the new WFC3 data to measure the cluster radial profiles, to search for color gradients, and in combination with ground-based spectroscopy and stellar population modeling, to determine the stellar masses of the clusters. Since nuclear clusters are known to contain stellar populations with a wide range of ages, the broad wavelength coverage of our data will provide new leverage to constrain the star formation history of the clusters. We will carry out dynamical modeling for the clusters, using the cluster structural parameters and stellar M/L ratios measured from the WFC3 data and kinematics measured from ground-based, adaptive-optics assisted integral-field spectroscopy {already obtained or approved for 8 of the 10 targets}. This will yield tight new constraints on the masses of intermediate-mass black holes {IMBH} within the clusters, and may result in the first dynamical detections of IMBHs in the nuclei of late-type spirals.;
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