The Astrophysical Journal, 825:3 (40pp), 2016 July 1 doi:10.3847/0004-637X/825/1/3 © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. THE BLACK HOLE–BULGE MASS RELATION IN MEGAMASER HOST GALAXIES* Ronald Läsker1,2, Jenny E. Greene3, Anil Seth4, Glenn van de Ven1, James A. Braatz5, Christian Henkel6,7, and K. Y. Lo5 1 Max-Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117, Heidelberg, Germany;
[email protected] 2 Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO (FINCA), University of Turku, Väisäläntie 20, FI-21500 Kaarina, Finland 3 Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, 4 Ivy Lane, Peyton Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA 4 Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Utah, 201 James Fletcher Building, 115 South 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA 5 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA 6 Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, D-31212 Bonn, Germany 7 Astron. Dept., King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia Received 2015 August 16; accepted 2016 March 31; published 2016 June 24 ABSTRACT We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images for nine megamaser disk galaxies with the primary goal of studying photometric BH-galaxy scaling relations. The megamaser disks provide the highest-precision extragalactic BH mass measurements, while our high-resolution HST imaging affords us the opportunity to decompose the complex nuclei of their late-type hosts in detail. Based on the morphologies and shapes of the galaxy nuclei, we argue that most of these galaxies’ central regions contain secularly evolving components (pseudo-bulges), and in many cases we photometrically identify co-existing “classical” bulge components as well.