Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 1994
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994aas...184.6403p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, 184th AAS Meeting, #64.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 26, p.966
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We present HST (pre-costar) observations of the inner nucleus of M31: V and Hα band images from the Planetary Camera, and rotational velocity and velocity dispersion measurements from Faint Object Spectrograph spectra. Both raw and deconvolved images show a double-peaked structure, with a separation of 0.49+/-0.02 arcsec. Our analyses based on the deconvolved images indicate that the bright peak follows a King profile with c~0.5, while the faint peak follows a r(-7/4) power law profile, resembling the density cusp of an embedded black hole. The kinematic data show rapid rotation velocities up to 140 km s(-1) and large velocity dispersions up to 380 km s(-1) . The maximum velocity dispersion occurs roughly at the location of the faint peak. This, combined with the power law density cusp, indicate that the faint peak is very likely to be the site hosting a black hole of few*E(6) M_sun. The exact nature of the bright companion is still unknown, although it could be the stripped nucleus of a dwarf galaxy captured recently. The rapid rotation may be accounted for by the fast spin of a binary system, consisting of the nuclear black hole and bright companion.
Ferrarese Laura
Ford Holland C.
Kriss Gerard Anthony
Pei Yichuan C.
Tsvetanov Zlatan
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