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arXiv · 2610.21524

Direct measures of black hole masses through cosmic time

Roberto Decarli·Sabine Thater·Ivan Delvecchio·Marcel Neeleman·Ilaria Ruffa·Hannah Stacey·Miguel Pereira-Santaella·Dieu Nguyen·Elena Bertola·Francoise Combes·Tanio Diaz-Santos·Carlotta Gruppioni·Alvaro Labiano·Isabella Lamperti·Chiara Mazzucchelli·Antonio Pensabene·Mamta Pandey-Pommier·Francesca Pozzi·Francesco Salvestrini
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Abstract

Supermassive black holes (BHs) are thought to reside in all massive galaxies. They play a fundamental role in shaping galaxy evolution by suppressing star formation and halting the stellar growth of the most massive galaxies via feedback mechanisms. However, to date, measuring even their most basic property, their mass, is still challenging. The mass of BHs carries information on the growth history and the mutual interplay with the host galaxy. Uncertain BH masses leave many key questions on galaxy evolution wide open. Here we show that a transformational facility such as ALMA2040 would open a new window to measure BH mass by directly observing the kinematics of cold gas in galaxy cores from the local Universe up to very high redshift, irrespective of BH activity. This would revolutionise our understanding of BH formation, growth, and their role within galaxy evolution.

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Roberto Decarli, Sabine Thater, Ivan Delvecchio, Marcel Neeleman, Ilaria Ruffa, Hannah Stacey, Miguel Pereira-Santaella, Dieu Nguyen, Elena Bertola, Francoise Combes, Tanio Diaz-Santos, Carlotta Gruppioni, Alvaro Labiano, Isabella Lamperti, Chiara Mazzucchelli, Antonio Pensabene, Mamta Pandey-Pommier, Francesca Pozzi, Francesco Salvestrini. 2026-10-15. Direct measures of black hole masses through cosmic time. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.21524

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