MSI Seminarxs

Black Holes in Low Mass Galaxies

Anil Seth

University of Utah

Supermassive black holes are ubiquitous in massive galaxies, but it remains unclear how many sub-Milky Way mass galaxies have central black holes. If low mass galaxies commonly host central black holes, these will make up the majority of massive black holes in the local universe. From the demographics of these black holes we can place constraints on how supermassive black holes form in the early universe. I will discuss my group’s discoveries of 10 black holes in nearby galaxies using adaptive optics kinematics observations. These include the discovery of massive black holes in stripped galaxy nuclei, and the first dynamical measurements of central BHs with masses below one million solar masses.