Physics
Scientific paper
Jul 1995
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1995hst..prop.6094b&link_type=abstract
HST Proposal ID #6094
Physics
Hst Proposal Id #6094 Agn
Scientific paper
Detection of supermassive black holes (BHs) in active galacticnuclei (AGNs) is one of the grand challenges that HST wasdesigned to meet. NGC 4374 = M84 = 3C272.1, as one of thethree nearest radio galaxies, is an ideal object for a BHsearch. Ground-based imaging and spectroscopy have revealed anuclear disk of ionized gas whose rotation axis is well-aligned with the radio jet axis. The velocity gradient acrossthe central part of the disk is unresolved from the ground (>100 km s^-1 arcsec^-1), suggesting the presence of > 2 * 10^8M_odot within a radius of 75 pc. Combining ground-baseddata on the stellar dynamics with archival HST images alsosuggests a large mass-to-light ratio in the nucleus. In thisproposal we request time to determine the kinematics of thenuclear disk in NGC 4374 within the central 0 sec point 5 inorder to determine if a BH is present. Measurements such asthese require only a modest investment of HST time and (whencombined with more painstaking observations of the stellardynamics in a few key AGNs) may ultimately allow us to use HSTto measure the BH mass function in radio-loud and radio-quietAGNs in the local universe. Knowing the BH distribution amongthese populations of AGNs may constrain models for thegeneration of energy in these enigmatic objects.
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