The use of data treatment techniques in the determination of masses of supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei

• Grant number: 23/01618-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2023
• End date: April 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Astronomy - Extragalactic Astrophysics
• Principal Investigator: Roberto Bertoldo Menezes
• Grantee: Leonardo Del Bel Sonoda
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia Mauá (EEM). Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia. São Caetano do Sul , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Galactic nuclei provide fundamental information about the formation and evolution of galaxies. Most, if not all, massive galaxies host supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their nuclei, with masses between one million and ten billion solar masses. Correlations between the masses of the SMBHs and certain parameters of the host galaxies suggest a possible co-evolution between the galaxies and the central SMBHs. The determination of the masses of theses black holes is a topic of great relevance in the current astrophysics. In this work, we propose to evaluate the effect of a data treatment methodology, developed by a research group of galactic nuclei of the Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (IAG) at Universidade de São Paulo (USP), in the determination of the masses of the SMBHs at the nuclei of the galaxies NGC 3115 and NGC 3585. This treatment methodology includes techniques which have the purpose of removing instrumental effects, removing high spatial-frequency noise and improving the spatial resolution of the observations. The determination of the masses of the SMBHs will be performed with the Jeans method. If successful, this study may demonstrate the positive effect of the data treatment methodology analyzed here in the accuracy of the values obtained for the masses of the SMBHs, which can make this procedure a valuable tool for studies in this area.