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J. Noel-Storr (University of Arizona), S. A. Baum, C. P. O'Dea (Rochester Institute of Technology)
We characterize the kinematics of the emission line gas in the nuclear regions of a complete sample of 21 nearby radio galaxies. We obtained data using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on board the {\em Hubble Space Telescope}. Spectral observations were obtained from a long slit placed on the galaxy nuclei and aligned on or close to the major photometric axis of each galaxy. We present global kinematic parameters for the central 100pc of each galaxy in the vicinity of the nuclear supermassive black hole.
We show evidence that the gas is generally not settled into a thin Keplerian disk with significant motions from other sources remaining. We show that the gas velocity dispersions are closely related to the stellar velocity dispersions which has implications for black hole fueling and growth mechanisms.
Our data have implications for the modeling of black hole masses using emission line gas kinematics as we show significant motions out of a smooth thin disk configuration are ubiquitous, and even in those cases where the velocity profile of the emission line gas appears smooth and un-complicated there may be dynamical components of the system that are not explained by a thin Keplerian disk model.
Support for this work was provided by NASA through grant number HST-GO-08236.01-A from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: jnoelstorr@as.arizona.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.