Owing to the advent of large area photometric surveys, the possibility to use broad band photometric data, instead of spectra, to measure the size of the broad line region of active galactic nuclei, has raised a large interest. We describe here a new method using time-delay lensed quasars where one or several images are affected by microlensing due to stars in the lensing galaxy. Because microlensing decreases (or increases) the flux of the continuum compared to the broad line region, it changes the contrast between these two emission components. We show that this effect can be used to effectively disentangle the intrinsic variability of those two regions, offering the opportunity to perform reverberation mapping based on single band photometric data. Based on simulated light curves generated using a damped random walk model of quasar variability, we show that measurement of the size of the broad line region can be achieved using this method, provided one spectrum has been obtained independently during the monitoring. This method is complementary to photometric reverberation mapping and could also be extended to multi-band data. Because the effect described above produces a variability pattern in difference light curves between pairs of lensed images which is correlated with the time-lagged continuum variability, it can potentially produce systematic errors in measurement of time delays between pairs of lensed images. Simple simulations indicate that time-delay measurement techniques which use a sufficiently flexible model for the extrinsic variability are not affected by this effect and produce accurate time delays.
Time-Domain Dust Astrophysics. I. Polarization Flares, Polarization-Angle Reverberation, and Fossil Imprints in Supernova-Illuminated Clouds
Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute（韩国天文与空间科学研究院）；Department of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology（科学技术大学天文与空间科学系）
Reverberation lags viewed in hard X-rays from an accreting stellar-mass black hole
Wuhan University（武汉大学）；Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院高能物理研究所）；Newcastle University（纽卡斯尔大学）；Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya（加泰罗尼亚理工大学）；Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学）
Physically motivated AGN emissivity profiles and their effects on quasar microlensing signatures. 1. Multi-epoch accretion disc size inference
IFPU - Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe（基础物理宇宙研究所）；SISSA - International School for Advanced Studies（国际高等研究院）；INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste（的里雅斯特天文台）；Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology, University of Nova Gorica（新戈里察大学天体物理学与宇宙学中心）
Evidence of a diffuse, extended continuum source in quasars from the relative sizes of the broad line region and the UV-optical continuum source measured with microlensing
Zooming into the broad line region of the gravitationally lensed quasar Q2237+0305 = the Einstein Cross: III. Determination of the size and structure of the CIV and CIII] emitting regions using microlensing
Size and kinematics of the low-ionization broad emission line region from microlensing-induced line profile distortions in gravitationally lensed quasars
Kinematic signatures of reverberation mapping of close binaries of supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei III. The case of elliptical orbits
