Bibcode
Reines, A. E.; Plotkin, R. M.; Russell, T. D.; Mezcua, M.; Condon, J. J.; Sivakoff, G. R.; Johnson, K. E.
Referencia bibliográfica
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 787, Issue 2, article id. L30, 5 pp. (2014).
Fecha de publicación:
6
2014
Número de citas
78
Número de citas referidas
72
Descripción
The incidence and properties of present-day dwarf galaxies hosting
massive black holes (BHs) can provide important constraints on the
origin of high-redshift BH seeds. Here we present high-resolution X-ray
and radio observations of the low-metallicity, star-forming,
dwarf-galaxy system Mrk 709 with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the
Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array. These data reveal spatially coincident
hard X-ray and radio point sources with luminosities suggesting the
presence of an accreting massive BH (M BH ~ 105-7
M ☉). Based on imaging from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey (SDSS), we find that Mrk 709 consists of a pair of compact dwarf
galaxies that appear to be interacting with one another. The position of
the candidate massive BH is consistent with the optical center of the
southern galaxy (Mrk 709 S), while no evidence for an active BH is seen
in the northern galaxy (Mrk 709 N). We derive stellar masses of M
sstarf ~ 2.5 × 109 M ☉ and
M sstarf ~ 1.1 × 109 M ☉
for Mrk 709 S and Mrk 709 N, respectively, and present an analysis of
the SDSS spectrum of the BH host Mrk 709 S. At a metallicity of just
~10% solar, Mrk 709 is among the most metal-poor galaxies with evidence
for an active galactic nucleus. Moreover, this discovery adds to the
growing body of evidence that massive BHs can form in dwarf galaxies and
that deep, high-resolution X-ray and radio observations are ideally
suited to reveal accreting massive BHs hidden at optical wavelengths.
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