A&A 542, A129 (2012) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201219375 & c ESO 2012 Astrophysics Central kinematics of the globular cluster NGC 2808: upper limit on the mass of an intermediate-mass black hole, N. Lützgendorf1, M. Kissler-Patig1,K.Gebhardt2,H.Baumgardt3, E. Noyola4,5, B. Jalali6, P. T. de Zeeuw1,7, and N. Neumayer1 1 European Southern Observatory (ESO), Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, 85748 Garching, Germany e-mail:
[email protected] 2 Astronomy Department, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA 3 School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia 4 Instituto de Astronomia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), AP 70-264, 04510 Mexico 5 University Observatory, Ludwig Maximilians University, 81679 Munich, Germany 6 I. Physikalisches Institut, Universität zu Köln, Zülpicher Str. 77, 50937 Köln, Germany 7 Sterrewacht Leiden, Leiden University, Postbus 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands Received 10 April 2012 / Accepted 18 April 2012 ABSTRACT Context. Globular clusters are an excellent laboratory for stellar population and dynamical research. Recent studies have shown that these stellar systems are not as simple as previously assumed. With multiple stellar populations as well as outer rotation and mass segregation they turn out to exhibit high complexity. This includes intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) which are proposed to sit at the centers of some massive globular clusters. Today’s high angular resolution ground based spectrographs allow velocity-dispersion measurements at a spatial resolution comparable to the radius of influence for plausible IMBH masses, and to detect changes in the inner velocity-dispersion profile.