MASS OF THE SOUTHERN BLACK HOLE IN NGC 6240 FROM LASER GUIDE STAR ADAPTIVE OPTICS
NGC 6240 is a pair of colliding disk galaxies, each with a black hole in its core. We have used laser guide star adaptive optics on the Keck II telescope to obtain high-resolution (~006) near-infrared integral-field spectra of the region surrounding the supermassive black hole in the south nucleus of this galaxy merger. We use the K-band CO absorption bandheads to trace stellar kinematics. We obtain a spatial resolution of about 20 pc and thus directly resolve the sphere of gravitational influence of the massive black hole. We explore two different methods to measure the black hole mass. Using a Jeans Axisymmetric Multi-Gaussian mass model, we investigate the limit that a relaxed mass distribution produces all of the measured velocity dispersion, and find an upper limit on the black hole mass at 2.0 ± 0.2 × 109 M ☉. When assuming the young stars whose spectra we observe remain in a thin disk, we compare Keplerian velocity fields to the measured two-dimensional velocity field and fit for a mass profile containing a black hole point mass plus a radially varying spherical component, which suggests a lower limit for the black hole mass of 8.7 ± 0.3 × 108 M ☉. Our measurements of the stellar velocity dispersion place this active galactic nucleus within the scatter of the M BH-σ* relation. As NGC 6240 is a merging system, this may indicate that the relation is preserved during a merger at least until the final coalescence of the two nuclei.

title: The role of secular evolution in the black hole growth of narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies
abstract: Narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxies show extreme properties with respect to the other Seyfert galaxies. Indeed, they are thought to be accreting at Eddington rates and to possess low-mass black holes. Therefore, they may represent a key class of objects for understanding the co-evolution of black holes and their host galaxies. We propose that NLS1s represent a class of active galactic nucleus in which the black hole growth is, and has always been, dominated by secular evolution. First, by looking at the NLS1 host galaxy properties in the literature, we show that the evolution of NLS1s is presently driven by secular processes, much more so than for broad-line Seyfert 1s (BLS1s). Secondly, we study the bulges of NLS1 and BLS1 galaxies. Our results demonstrate that NLS1 host bulges are pseudo-bulges and are statistically different from BLS1 bulges. This difference points to the particular importance of secular processes in the past evolution of their hosts. We build on this result to understand the implications on their evolution and the duration of their duty cycle. We show that NLS1s are not necessarily in a special phase of black hole growth and that several Gyr are required for their black hole masses to become similar to BLS1s. Finally, in the light of our results, we discuss the location of NLS1 galaxies on the MBH–σ plane and speculate about the connection between the NLS1 galaxy properties and their black hole spin.

title: The Impact of Nuclear Star Formation on Gas Inflow to AGN
abstract: Our adaptive optics observations of nearby AGN at spatial resolutions as small as 0.085arcsec show strong evidence for recent, but no longer active, nuclear star formation. We begin by describing observations that highlight two contrasting methods by which gas can flow into the central tens of parsecs. Gas accumulation in this region will inevitably lead to a starburst, and we discuss the evidence for such events. We then turn to the impact of stellar evolution on the further inflow of gas by combining a phenomenological approach with analytical modelling and hydrodynamic simulations. These complementary perspectives paint a picture in which all the processes are ultimately regulated by the mass accretion rate into the central hundred parsecs, and the ensuing starburst that occurs there. The resulting supernovae delay accretion by generating a starburst wind, which leaves behind a clumpy interstellar medium. This provides an ideal environment for slower stellar outflows to accrete inwards and form a dense turbulent disk on scales of a few parsecs. Such a scenario may resolve the discrepancy between the larger scale structure seen with adaptive optics and the small scale structure seen with VLTI.

title: ALICE HLT High Speed Tracking on GPU
abstract: The on-line event reconstruction in ALICE is performed by the High Level Trigger, which should process up to 2000 events per second in proton-proton collisions and up to 300 central events per second in heavy-ion collisions, corresponding to an input data stream of 30 GB/s. In order to fulfill the time requirements, a fast on-line tracker has been developed. The algorithm combines a Cellular Automaton method being used for a fast pattern recognition and the Kalman Filter method for fitting of found trajectories and for the final track selection. The tracker was adapted to run on Graphics Processing Units (GPU) using the NVIDIA Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) framework. The implementation of the algorithm had to be adjusted at many points to allow for an efficient usage of the graphics cards. In particular, achieving a good overall workload for many processor cores, efficient transfer to and from the GPU, as well as optimized utilization of the different memories the GPU offers turned out to be critical. To cope with these problems a dynamic scheduler was introduced, which redistributes the workload among the processor cores. Additionally a pipeline was implemented so that the tracking on the GPU, the initialization and the output processed by the CPU, as well as the DMA transfer can overlap. The GPU tracking algorithm significantly outperforms the CPU version for large events while it entirely maintains its efficiency.

title: Inclusive $J/\psi$ production in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 2.76$ TeV
abstract: The ALICE Collaboration has measured inclusive J/psi production in pp collisions at a center of mass energy sqrt(s)=2.76 TeV at the LHC. The results presented in this Letter refer to the rapidity ranges |y|<0.9 and 2.5