| The two-dimensional distribution and kinematics of the molecular, ionized, and highly ionized gas in the nuclear regions of Seyfert 1 galaxies have been measured using high spatial resolution near-infrared spectroscopy from NIRSPEC with adaptive optics on the Keck telescope. Molecular hydrogen, H2, is detected in all nine Seyfert 1 galaxies and, in the majority of galaxies, has a spatially resolved flux distribution. In contrast, the narrow component of the Brgamma emission has a distribution consistent with that of the K-band continuum. In general, the kinematics of the molecular hydrogen are consistent with thin disk rotation, with a velocity gradient of over 100 km s-1 measured across the central 0''.5 in three galaxies, and a similar gradient across the central 1''.5 in an additional two galaxies. Thermal processes, most likely generated by both the active nucleus and a nuclear starburst, are found to be the dominant H2 excitation mechanism in the central 2''; however, in the vicinity of the active nucleus (r ∼ 10 pc), a mixture of thermal and non-thermal excitation mechanisms are suggested by the H2 line ratios. The kinematics of Brgamma are in agreement with the H2 rotation, except in all four cases the central 0''.5 is either blue- or redshifted by more than 75 km s-1. The highly ionized gas, measured with the [Ca VIII] and [Si VII] coronal lines, is spatially and kinematically consistent with Brgamma in the central 0''.5. Dynamical models have been fitted to the two-dimensional H2 kinematics, taking into account the stellar mass distribution, the emission line flux distribution, and the point spread function. For NGC 3227 the modeling indicates a black hole mass of MBH= 2.0+1.0-0.4 x 107 M⊙ , and for NGC 4151 MBH= 3.0+0.75-2.2 x 107 M⊙ . In NGC 7469 the best fit model gives MBH<5.0 x 107 M⊙ . In all three galaxies, modeling suggests a near face-on disk inclination angle, which is consistent with the unification theory of active galaxies. The direct black hole mass estimates verify that estimates from the indirect technique of reverberation mapping are accurate to within a factor of two with no additional systematic errors. |
