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Gas Disks and Supermassive Black Holes in Nearby Radio Galaxies

Gas Disks and Supermassive Black Holes in Nearby Radio Galaxies

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From the work presented <strong>in</strong> this dissertation it is clear that one should not gen-<br />

erally expect the gas to be settled, or to be <strong>in</strong> a th<strong>in</strong> disk. Furthermore it seems<br />

unreasonable to expect the gas to be coplanar with the major plane of the galaxy<br />

potential (<strong>and</strong> possibly even with the plane of the dust, if the gas <strong>and</strong> dust are not<br />

necessarily well coupled). Moreover, we observe warps, twists <strong>and</strong> other less expli-<br />

cable unsettled motions <strong>in</strong> the gas, suggest<strong>in</strong>g that any representation by a s<strong>in</strong>gle<br />

k<strong>in</strong>ematic system may not be appropriate. In those cases where we do not directly<br />

observe this type of feature, it is always possible that these characteristics occur non<br />

the less, but possibly on smaller scales than can be observed or <strong>in</strong> planes for which<br />

we do not gather k<strong>in</strong>ematical data. (we of course only ever have a 1 dimensional<br />

k<strong>in</strong>ematic view of these three dimensional systems).<br />

Gather<strong>in</strong>g data sets that improve the spatial coverage of the nuclear k<strong>in</strong>ematics<br />

will help identify k<strong>in</strong>ematic patterns <strong>in</strong> the gas <strong>and</strong> trace them on larger scales, so<br />

that we may be able to underst<strong>and</strong> how they fit <strong>in</strong>to the galaxy’s structure. If we<br />

underst<strong>and</strong> the consequences of the physical systems driv<strong>in</strong>g features <strong>in</strong> the k<strong>in</strong>emat-<br />

ics of samples of galaxies, then we should be able to estimate how they effect the<br />

constra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g power of models that we develop to represent the situation <strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>dividual<br />

nuclei (<strong>and</strong> hence the limits that we can place on the determ<strong>in</strong>ation of the black<br />

hole masses). It is unlikely no matter how sophisticated observational <strong>and</strong> model<strong>in</strong>g<br />

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