Program: GN-2019A-Q-131

Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs), with masses between 100 and 10^5 MSun, hold the clues to the origin of supermassive black holes that reside in the centers of galaxies and are prime targets for LISA, yet black holes in this mass range are impossible to detect kinematically and have eluded detection by traditional optical spectroscopic surveys. Recent theoretical studies have suggested near-infrared coronal lines may prove a unique tool to detecting and measuring the mass of these elusive objects, however no coronal line survey to date has probed black holes of mass below ~10^6 MSun. We propose to study the coronal line emission in active galactic nuclei (AGN) with the lowest confirmed black hole masses (10^4.7 and 10^5.5 MSun) to test the diagnostic power of this tool and provide a ground-based pilot study to prepare for the James Webb Space Telescope.