The Mass of the Black Hole in NGC 5273 from Stellar Dynamical Modeling

Abstract

We present a new constraint on the mass of the black hole in the active S0 galaxy NGC 5273. Due to the proximity of the galaxy at 16.6 ± 2.1 Mpc, we were able to resolve and extract the bulk motions of stars near the central black hole using adaptive-optics-assisted observations with the Gemini Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph, as well as constrain the large-scale kinematics using archival Spectroscopic Areal Unit for Research and Optical Nebulae spectroscopy. High-resolution Hubble Space Telescope imaging allowed us to generate a surface-brightness decomposition, determine approximate mass-to-light ratios for the bulge and disk, and obtain an estimate for the disk inclination. We constructed an extensive library of dynamical models using the Schwarzschild orbit-superposition code FORSTAND, exploring a range of disk and bulge shapes, halo masses, etc. We determined a black hole mass of M • = [0.5–2] × 10 7 M ⊙ , where the low side of the range is in agreement with the reverberation mapping measurement of M • = [4.7 ± 1.6] × 10 6 M ⊙ . NGC 5273 is one of the few nearby galaxies that hosts a broad-lined active galactic nucleus, allowing a crucial comparison of black hole masses derived from independent mass-measurement techniques.