J/A+A/712/A105 MBHs in triaxial galaxies with SINFONI and MUSE (Thater+, 2026)
Supermassive black holes in six triaxial galaxies:
Insights from SINFONI and MUSE observations.
Thater S., Chaturvedi A., Krajnovic D., Cappellari M., Khochfar S., Naab T.,
Sarzi M., van de Ven G.
<Astron. Astrophys. 712, A105 (2026)>
=2026A&A...712A.105T 2026A&A...712A.105T (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Galaxies, optical ; Galaxies, IR ; Galaxies, spectra
Keywords: galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD -
galaxies: kinematics and dynamics - galaxies: nuclei
Abstract:
Dynamical modelling can be used to constrain the masses of central
black holes; however,modelling massive galaxies is challenging due to
their complexity. In this work, we report six new supermassive black
hole mass measurements of massive early-type galaxies from stellar
kinematics, which were extracted from adaptive optics-assisted SINFONI
and MUSE observations. We combine the stellar kinematics with HST
photometry to build DYNAMITE triaxial Schwarzschild
orbit-superposition models. Our Schwarzschild models can recover the
complex triaxial features of the galaxies and constrain the black hole
masses of all six galaxies. We find that strong triaxial kinematic
features can bias the mass measurements and correct for this effect.
The derived black hole masses are (1.14+0.41-0.6)x109M+☉_
for NGC 3706, (1.19+1.34-0.80)x109^M☉ for NGC3923,
(1.14+1.08-0.95)x109M☉ for NGC4261,
(4.68+2.99-4.26)x109M☉ for NGC 4636,
(3.51+3.37-2.57)x109M☉ for IC 4296, and
(2.43+1.53-1.65)x109M☉ for IC 4329 at 3σ confidence
level. We compare our measurements with published results from
axisymmetric Schwarzschild modelling and with our Jeans Anisotropic
Models (JAM), and obtain mostly consistent black hole masses. Most of
our black hole mass estimates can be well constrained using only MUSE
observations. All of our mass measurements are in agreement with local
black hole scaling relations.
Description:
The FITS files contain the reduced co-added MUSE and SINONI flux data
cubes for NGC 3706, NGC 3923, NGC 4261, NGC 4636, IC 4296 and IC 4329.
The observations and data reduction are described in Section 3 of the
paper. The data cubes were used to extract the central kinematics of
our sample galaxies. The MUSE data cubes for NGC 3923 and NGC 4261
have 4 extensions: the primary, a "DATA" array containing the 3D
science data cube, a "STAT" array containing the pixel-by-pixel
variance, and a "white" light image, which is the collapsed image of
the entire cube. NGC 4636, IC 4296 and IC 4329, in addition, contain
images in the Johnson_V, Cousins_R and Cousins_I band. The SINFONI
data for all galaxies have a single extension which contains the data
array.
Objects:
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RA (2000) DE Designation(s)
--------------------------------------------------
11 29 44.43 -36 23 28.7 NGC 3706 = LEDA 35417
11 51 01.78 -28 48 22.4 NGC 3923 = LEDA 37061
12 19 23.22 +05 49 29.7 NGC 4261 = LEDA 39659
12 42 49.83 +02 41 16.0 NGC 4636 = LEDA 42734
13 36 39.03 -33 57 57.1 IC 4296 = LEDA 48040
13 49 05.31 -30 17 45.2 IC 4329 = LEDA 49025
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File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ReadMe 80 . This file
list.dat 85 12 List of MUSE and SINFONI datacubes
fits/* . 12 Individual MUSE and SINFONI datacubes
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: list.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 9 F9.5 deg RAdeg Right Ascension of center (J2000)
10- 18 F9.5 deg DEdeg Declination of center (J2000)
20- 23 I4 --- Nx Number of pixels along X-axis
25- 27 I3 --- Ny Number of pixels along Y-axis
29- 32 I4 --- Nz Number of pixels along spectral axis
34- 41 I8 Kibyte size Size of FITS file
43- 67 A25 --- FileName Name of FITS file, in subdirectory fits
69- 85 A17 --- Title Title of the FITS file
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Acknowledgements:
Sabine Thater, thater(at)univie.ac.at
License: CC-BY-4.0
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 26-May-2026