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The central kinematics of NGC 1399 measured with 14pc resolution

R. C. W. Houghton·J. Magorrian·M. Sarzi·N. Thatte·R. L. Davies·D. Krajnovic
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Abstract

We present near infra-red (NIR) adaptive optics assisted spectroscopic observations of the CO ($Δμ=2$) absorption bands towards the centre of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1399. The observations were made with NAOS-CONICA (ESO VLT) and have a FWHM resolution of 0\farcs15 (14pc). Kinematic analysis of the observations reveals a decoupled core and strongly non-Gaussian line-of-sight velocity profiles (VPs) in the central 0.2 arcsec (19pc). NIR imaging also indicates an asymmetric elongation of the central isophotes in the same region. We use spherical orbit-superposition models to interpret the kinematics, using a set of orthogonal ``eigenVPs'' that allow us to fit models directly to spectra. The models require a central black hole of mass $1.2^{+0.5}_{-0.6}\times10^9M_\odot$, with a strongly tangentially biased orbit distribution in the inner 40pc.

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R. C. W. Houghton, J. Magorrian, M. Sarzi, N. Thatte, R. L. Davies, D. Krajnovic. 2005-10-10. The central kinematics of NGC 1399 measured with 14pc resolution. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09713.x

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