The demography of massive central black holes

Session 111 - Massive Black Holes and Dynamics of Galaxy Cores.
Oral session, Thursday, January 16
Harbour A,

[111.04] The demography of massive central black holes

J. Magorrian, S. Tremaine (CITA), K. Gebhardt, D. Richstone (U. Michigan), S. Faber (UCO Lick Obs.)

There are currently around 10 galaxies for which there is strong evidence for a massive central black hole. Kormendy amp; Richstone have pointed out a striking correlation between galaxy and BH mass, namely M_bh\sim0.004M_gal. An interesting question is whether this correlation is due to a narrow ridge in the probability distribution p(M_bh|M_gal), or whether it is merely a selection effect.

We attempt to answer this question using a sample of 36 galaxies for which HST photometry and ground-based kinematics are available. Each galaxy is assumed to be axisymmetric, with an arbitrary inclination angle, and a central BH of arbitrary mass. Moreover, each is assumed to be well described by a two-integral DF. These assumptions allow us to calculate the likelihood of the sample given any p(M_bh|M_gal), and thus to calculate bookmakers' odds for different assumed forms for the latter.

Program listing for Thursday