MEGAMASER DISKS REVEAL A BROAD DISTRIBUTION OF BLACK HOLE MASS IN SPIRAL GALAXIES

Abstract

ABSTRACT We use new precision measurements of black hole (BH) masses from water megamaser disks to investigate scaling relations between macroscopic galaxy properties and supermassive BH mass. The megamaser-derived BH masses span 106–108 M ⊙ , while all the galaxy properties that we examine (including total stellar mass, central mass density, and central velocity dispersion) lie within a narrower range. Thus, no galaxy property correlates tightly with M BH in ∼L* spiral galaxies as traced by megamaser disks. Of them all, stellar velocity dispersion provides the tightest relation, but at fixed σ * the mean megamaser M BH are offset by −0.6 ± 0.1 dex relative to early-type galaxies. Spiral galaxies with non-maser dynamical BH masses do not appear to show this offset. At low mass, we do not yet know the full distribution of BH mass at fixed galaxy property; the non-maser dynamical measurements may miss the low-mass end of the BH distribution due to an inability to resolve their spheres of influence and/or megamasers may preferentially occur in lower-mass BHs.