We propose to use STIS to obtain optical spectroscopy at high spatial resolution of the black hole-hosting globular cluster RZ2109 in the Virgo elliptical NGC 4472. This is motivated by our very recent discovery broad [OIII] 4959, 5007 emission with a width of several thousand km/s in this globular cluster. The STIS spectroscopy will enable us to determine if the very broad [OIII] emission is due to material driven at high velocity from the central accreting black hole across the globular cluster, or if the velocity widths are due to gravitational motions very close to the central black hole. In the former case, the [OIII] emission should extend over a few-tenths of an arcsecond and be spatially resolved by HST and STIS, while in the latter case, the emission lines will be unresolved. Distinguishing between these two possibilities will allow us to - 1) determine whether the black hole is of intermediate mass or a stellar mass, and thereby whether the black hole mass - sigma relation extends to globular cluster masses, 2) test models of black hole formation and evolution in dense stellar systems, and 3) address the nature of accretion in the high luminosity black-hole X-ray source, and constrain the feedback processes from luminous black holes into their surrounding medium in dense stellar systems.

The primary goal of our proposal is to determine whether the observed broad [OIII] emission in the black-hole hosting globular cluster RZ2109 in NGC 4472 comes from spatially extended material driven across the globular cluster, corresponding to scale of a few tenths of an arcsecond, or if the large velocity width of the [OIII] is caused by material located very near the black hole, in which case it will be unresolved, even with HST. Distinguishing between these two requires the spatial resolution of HST, thus we will use STIS with the G430L grating and the 50x0.2 slit. We will specifically obtain spectra in four visits of four orbits each, with somewhat different position angles for each visit in order to constrain asymmetry in any spatially extended material. UNRESOLVED STELLAR POPULATIONS AND GALAXY STRUCTURE 12 false 0.0 0.0 false false false false false SUPPORTED STELLAR CLUSTER GLOBULAR CLUSTER J2000 12 29 39.7000 +07 53 33.00 J2000 STIS/CCD Spectroscopic No No G430L 4300 The scheduling data was generated by CASM 17.2. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "01" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20090130" :date "23-Jun-2009 12:50:34.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 4 :saa-model "24" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 221248 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "01" :obset-id "01" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "01" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2868 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "01" :orbit-number 2 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2972 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "01" :orbit-number 3 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2972 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "01" :orbit-number 4 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2975 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 421 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 4 0 Exposure time for ACQ is set by requiring S/N=40 for V=21 object spread out over a diameter of 0.4 arcseconds. This is true for all ACQ exposures in this program. The scheduling data was generated by CASM 17.2. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "02" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20090130" :date "23-Jun-2009 12:50:43.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 4 :saa-model "24" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 221248 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "02" :obset-id "02" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "02" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2868 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "02" :orbit-number 2 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2972 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "02" :orbit-number 3 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2972 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "02" :orbit-number 4 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2975 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 421 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 4 0 The scheduling data was generated by CASM 17.2. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "03" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20090130" :date "23-Jun-2009 12:50:53.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 4 :saa-model "24" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 221248 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "03" :obset-id "03" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "03" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2868 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "03" :orbit-number 2 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2972 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "03" :orbit-number 3 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2972 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "03" :orbit-number 4 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2975 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 421 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) false 4 0 The scheduling data was generated by CASM 17.2. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "04" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20090130" :date "23-Jun-2009 12:51:00.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 4 :saa-model "24" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 221248 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "04" :obset-id "04" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "04" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2868 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "04" :orbit-number 2 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2972 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "04" :orbit-number 3 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2972 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 11703 :visit-id "04" :orbit-number 4 :pcs-time 195 :si-vis-utilization 2975 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 421 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3242 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 4 0