Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2002-01-07
Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 335 (2002) 517
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
10 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication by MNRAS; version with full resolution Fig.1 available at http://www.strw.leid
Scientific paper
10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.05664.x
We present dynamical models of the nearby compact elliptical galaxy M32, using high quality kinematical measurements, obtained with the integral-field spectrograph SAURON mounted on the William Herschel Telescope on La Palma. We also include STIS data obtained by Joseph et al. We find a best-fit black hole mass of (2.5 +/- 0.5) million solar masses and a stellar I-band mass-to-light ratio of (1.85 +/- 0.15) in solar units. For the first time, we are also able to constrain the inclination along which M32 is observed to (70 +/- 5) degrees. Combined with an averaged observed flattening of 0.73, this corresponds to an intrinsic flattening of approximately 0.68 +/- 0.03. These tight constraints are mainly caused by the use of integral-field data. We show this quantitatively by comparing with models that are constrained by multiple slits only. We show the phase-space distribution and intrinsic velocity structure of the best-fit model and investigate the effect of regularisation on the orbit distribution.
Bacon Roland
Bureau Martin
Cappellari Michele
Copin Yannick
Davies Roger L.
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