Extended Data Figure 5: The enclosed mass of NGC 1600.
From: A 17-billion-solar-mass black hole in a group galaxy with a diffuse core
a, The enclosed stellar mass (M⋆, blue), dark-halo mass (MDM, red), black-hole mass (MBH, grey) and combined total mass (black) obtained in our model from the smallest resolved radius (point-spread-function, PSF, size) out to 20 kpc (Mitchell IFU size). b, An illustration of the excessive M⋆/L gradient (dotted pale blue curve) that would be required for a hypothetical population of unresolved central dwarf stars to explain 10% of NGC 1600’s measured MBH. The stellar mass-to-light ratio would have to increase by about a factor of ten (dotted pale blue curve) over our best-fit constant value (dashed blue curve). Observations of other galaxies suggest that extreme populations of dwarf stars can increase M⋆/L by a factor of up to three.
