An ALMA Gas-dynamical Mass Measurement of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Local Compact Galaxy UGC 2698

Abstract

We present 0.″14 resolution Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) CO(2−1) observations of the circumnuclear gas disk in UGC 2698, a local compact galaxy. The disk exhibits regular rotation with projected velocities rising to 450 km s−1 near the galaxy center. We fit gas-dynamical models to the ALMA data cube, assuming the CO emission originates from a dynamically cold, thin disk, and measured the mass of the supermassive black hole (BH) in UGC 2698 to be M BH = (2.46 ± 0.07 [1σ statistical] −0.78+0.70 [systematic]) × 109 M ⊙. UGC 2698 is part of a sample of nearby early-type galaxies that are plausible z ∼ 2 red nugget relics. Previous stellar-dynamical modeling for three galaxies in the sample found BH masses consistent with the BH mass−stellar velocity dispersion (M BH − σ ⋆) relation but over-massive relative to the BH mass−bulge luminosity (M BH − L bul) correlation, suggesting that BHs may gain the majority of their mass before their host galaxies. However, UGC 2698 is consistent with both M BH − σ ⋆ and M BH − L bul. As UGC 2698 has the largest stellar mass and effective radius in the local compact galaxy sample, it may have undergone more recent mergers that brought it in line with the BH scaling relations. Alternatively, given that the three previously measured compact galaxies are outliers from M BH − L bul, while UGC 2698 is not, there may be significant scatter at the poorly sampled high-mass end of the relation. Additional gas-dynamical M BH measurements for the compact galaxy sample will improve our understanding of BH−galaxy co-evolution.