MPE Science Highlight

S3BH: The SINFONI Search for
Supermassive Black Holes
We have observed a total of 33 nearby galaxies with SINFONI on the VLT, using adaptive
optics to derive stellar velocity fields and measure supermassive black hole (SMBH) masses
in galaxy centers. This will help answer several key questions about SMBH–galaxy
correlations, including how they behave in the high- and low-mass regimes and whether
pseudobulges and classical bulges follow the same correlations.
Most if not all galaxies host supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in their nuclei, with strong
correlations between SMBH mass and galaxy properties. However, key questions remain
unanswered: Do the correlations deviate from linearity at the high-mass (or low-mass) end? Do the
same relations hold for classical bulges, “pseudobulges”, and merger remnants alike? To address
these questions, we have observed a sample of 33 nearby galaxies using adaptive optics and the
SINFONI near-IR integral field unit on the VLT (see table below); the goal is to model their 2D
stellar kinematics and determine the SMBH masses. Basic data reduction is complete, with
kinematic derived for over half the galaxies (Fig. 1); dynamical modeling of 5 galaxies (published
or submitted) already shows significant deviations from the MBH–Mbulge relation (Fig. 2).
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Figure 1: Stellar velocity fields for 12 of
the 33 galaxies observed with SINFONI. In
each plot, left = velocity, right = velocity
dispersion; blue/red indicates negative/
positive velocity or low/high dispersion
[km/s], respectively.
NGC 307
NGC 1316
NGC 1332
NGC 1374
NGC 1398
NGC 1407
NGC 1550
NGC 3091
NGC 3137
NGC 3351
NGC 3368
NGC 3412
NGC 3489
NGC 3627
NGC 3923
NGC 4371
NGC 4472
NGC 4486a
NGC 4486b
NGC 4501
NGC 4536
NGC 4569
NGC 4579
NGC 4699
NGC 4751
NGC 4762
NGC 5018
NGC 5102
NGC 5328
NGC 5419
NGC 5516
NGC 7619
ESO 138-5
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0.17
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0.17
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0.33
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Figure 2: Correlations between SMBH
mass and velocity dispersion (top) or bulge
luminosity (bottom). Our published
measurements are in red; these show good
agreement with the first relation, but
significant deviations from the second.
R. Bender, P. Erwin, M. Fabricius, F. Klein, N. Nowak, S. Rusli, R. Saglia, J. Thomas