Program: GN-2018B-FT-110

H2O megamasers residing in the AGN accretion disk in the galaxy J0437+2456 provide an excellent tracer of the SMBH velocity, which we have measured to be offset by 70 km/s from the host galaxy recession velocity. Such an offset is only expected if the black hole is either participating in a SMBH binary system or if it is experiencing a gravitational wave "kick" resulting from a recent SMBH merger event. However, the galaxy recession velocity has currently been measured using only an SDSS spectrum, which is subject to considerable systematic uncertainty. Spatially-resolved stellar dynamics in the NIR provide a much more reliable tracer of the galaxy recession velocity, as they are much more robust against biases from extinction/reddening effects or from asymmetric line profiles. We request 1 hour on NIFS to observe J0437+2456 in K-band and robustly determine its recession velocity, thereby confirming or refuting the presence of a kinematically offset SMBH in this galaxy.