Abstract The integral-field unit mode of the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec+IFU) mounted on the James Webb Space Telescope has now enabled kinematic studies of smaller and less massive compact stellar systems in which to search for central massive black holes (BHs) than ever before. We present here the first such detection using NIRSpec+IFU in its highest resolution ( R ∼ 2700) mode. We report the detection of a central BH with mass M BH = 2.1 ± 1.1 × 10 6 M ⊙ (1 σ uncertainties) in UCD736 orbiting within the Virgo galaxy cluster. Schwarzschild modeling of the 1D kinematic profile rules out a zero-mass central BH at the 3 σ level; however, two other independent modeling approaches fail to rule out a zero-mass BH at >1 σ significance. The presence of such a massive BH strongly argues against a globular cluster origin of this ultracompact dwarf galaxy (UCD), and rather suggests a tidally stripped formation route from a former ≳10 9 M ⊙ dwarf galaxy host. This represents the detection of a BH in the most compact ( r h ≈ 15 pc) stellar system to date, with a M BH corresponding to ∼8% of the system’s stellar mass, roughly in line with previously reported UCD BH detections and comparable to the BH detected in the compact elliptical galaxy NGC4486B.
Taylor et al. (2025) studied this question.