The mass of the black hole in Cygnus A

Details The mass of the black hole in Cygnus A The mass of the black hole in Cygnus A

Jul 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999hst..prop.8106t&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #8106

Computer Science

Hst Proposal Id #8106 Galaxy Structure And Dynamics

Scientific paper

Although supermassive black holes are thought to be the main power source for the jets and active components of radio galaxies, the relationship between the masses of the black holes, the bulges of the host galaxies, and the radio activity are not understood with any certainty. Part of the problem has been the lack of suitable dynamical tracers in the nuclei of the radio source host galaxies. However, using HST imaging observations we have recently detected a high surface brightness disk structure at the centre of the archetypal powerful radio galaxy Cygnus A. We now propose to use STIS measurements of the emission line kinematics in the disk to measure the mass of the core of the galaxy, and thereby test the idea that powerful radio sources are only associated with the most massive black holes {M_bh > 10^9 M_odot} in the host galaxies with the most massive galaxy bulges. Requiring only 5 orbits of HST time, this project is fundamental to our general understanding of the en er gy generation mechanisms in powerful radio galaxies. These observations will represent the first attempt to map the kinematics of the ionized gas in detail on a sub-kpc scale in a powerful FRII radio galaxy. Given the requirement for high spatial resolution long-slit spectroscopy across the core of the galaxy, this project can only be done with STIS on the HST.

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