Bibcode
Berrier, J. C.; Davis, Benjamin L.; Kennefick, Daniel; Kennefick, Julia D.; Seigar, Marc S.; Barrows, Robert Scott; Hartley, Matthew; Shields, Doug; Bentz, Misty C.; Lacy, Claud H. S.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 769, Issue 2, article id. 132, 17 pp. (2013).
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6
2013
Journal
Citations
56
Refereed citations
43
Description
We present new and stronger evidence for a previously reported
relationship between galactic spiral arm pitch angle P (a measure of the
tightness of spiral structure) and the mass M BH of a disk
galaxy's nuclear supermassive black hole (SMBH). We use an improved
method to accurately measure the spiral arm pitch angle in disk galaxies
to generate quantitative data on this morphological feature for 34
galaxies with directly measured black hole masses. We find a relation of
log (M/M ☉) = (8.21 ± 0.16) – (0.062
± 0.009)P. This method is compared with other means of estimating
black hole mass to determine its effectiveness and usefulness relative
to other existing relations. We argue that such a relationship is
predicted by leading theories of spiral structure in disk galaxies,
including the density wave theory. We propose this relationship as a
tool for estimating SMBH masses in disk galaxies. This tool is
potentially superior when compared to other methods for this class of
galaxy and has the advantage of being unambiguously measurable from
imaging data alone.
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