Velocity-resolved reverberation mapping of five bright Seyfert 1 galaxies
G. De Rosa, M. M. Fausnaugh, C. J. Grier, B. M. Peterson, K. D. Denney, Keith Horne, M. C. Bentz, S. Ciroi, E. Dalla Bonta`, M. D. Joner, S. Kaspi, C. S. Kochan… 展开作者
G. De Rosa, M. M. Fausnaugh, C. J. Grier, B. M. Peterson, K. D. Denney, Keith Horne, M. C. Bentz, S. Ciroi, E. Dalla Bonta`, M. D. Joner, S. Kaspi, C. S. Kochanek, R. W. Pogge, S. G. Sergeev, M. Vestergaard, S. M. Adams, J. Antognini, C. Araya Salvo, E. Armstrong, J. Bae, A. J. Barth, T. G. Beatty, A. Bhattacharjee, G. A. Borman, T. A. Boroson, M. C. Bottorff, J. E. Brown, J. S. Brown, M. S. Brotherton, C. T. Coker, C. Clanton, V. Cracco, S. M. Crawford, K. V. Croxall, S. Eftekharzadeh, M. Eracleous, S. L. Fiorenza, A. Frassati, K. Hawkins, C. B. Henderson, T. W. -S. Holoien, T. Hutchison, J. Kellar, E. Kilerci-Eser, S. Kim, A. L. King, G. La Mura, C. D. Laney, M. Li, C. Lochhaas, Z. Ma, F. MacInnis, E. R. Manne-Nicholas, M. Mason, S. M. McGraw, K. Mogren, C. Montouri, J. W. Moody, A. M. Mosquera, D. Mudd, R. Musso, S. V. Nazarov, M. L. Nguyen, P. Ochner, D. N. Okhmat, C. A. Onken, B. Ou-Yang, A. Pancoast, L. Pei, M. Penny, R. Poleski, E. Portaluri, J. -L. Prieto, A. M. Price-Whelan, N. G. Pulatova, S. Rafter, R. M. Roettenbacher, E. Romero-Colmenero, J. Runnoe, J. S. Schimoia, B. J. Shappee, N. Sherf, G. V. Simonian, A. Siviero, D. M. Skowron, J. Skowron, G. Somers, M. Spencer, D. A. Starkey, D. J. Stevens, R. Stoll, E. Tamajo, J. Tayar, J. L. van Saders, S. Valenti, S. Villanueva,, C. Villforth, Y. Weiss, H. Winkler, J. Zastrow, W. Zhu, Y. Zu
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Accepted for publication on ApJ; 32 pages, 16 figures, 10 tables
We present the first results from a reverberation-mapping campaign undertaken during the first half of 2012, with additional data on one AGN (NGC 3227) from a 2014 campaign. Our main goals are (1) to determine the black hole masses from continuum-Hbeta reverberation signatures, and (2) to look for velocity-dependent time delays that might be indicators of the gross kinematics of the broad-line region. We successfully measure Hbeta time delays and black hole masses for five AGNs, four of which have previous reverberation mass measurements. The values measured here are in agreement with earlier estimates, though there is some intrinsic scatter beyond the formal measurement errors. We observe velocity dependent Hbeta lags in each case, and find that the patterns have changed in the intervening five years for three AGNs that were also observed in 2007.
We present the results of a dust reverberation survey for 17 nearby Seyfert 1 galaxies, which provides the largest homogeneous data collection for the radius of the innermost dust torus. A delayed response of the K-band light curve after the V-band light curve was found for all targets, and 49 measurements of lag times between the flux variation of the dust emission in the K band and that of the optical continuum emission in the V band were obtained. The lag times strongly correlated with the optical luminosity in the luminosity range of M_V=-16 to -22 mag, and the regression analysis was perf…
We propose a method for the flux calibration of reverberation mapping spectra based on accurate measurement of [O III] $λ5007$ emission by spectral fitting. The method can achieve better accuracy than the traditional method of van Groningen & Wanders (1992), allowing reverberation mapping measurements for object with variability amplitudes as low as $\sim$ 5%. As a demonstration, we reanalyze the data of the Seyfert 1 galaxy MCG--6-30-15 taken from the 2008 campaign of the Lick AGN Monitoring Project, which previously failed to obtain a time lag for this weakly variable object owing to a relat…
We present the results of a two year optical continuum photometric reverberation mapping campaign carried out on the nucleus of the Seyfert-1 galaxy Mrk509. Specially designed narrow-band filters were used in order to mitigate the line and pseudo-continuum contamination of the signal from the broad line region, while allowing for high-accuracy flux-calibration over a large field of view. We obtained light curves with a sub-day time sampling and typical flux uncertainties of $1\%$. The high photometric precision allowed us to measure inter-band continuum time delays of up to $\sim 2$ days acros…
We report results of the first reverberation mapping campaign of I Zwicky 1 during $2014$-$2016$, which showed unambiguous reverberations of the broad H$β$ line emission to the varying optical continuum. From analysis using several methods, we obtain a reverberation lag of $τ_{\rm Hβ}=37.2^{+4.5}_{-4.9}\,$ days. Taking a virial factor of $f_{_{\rm BLR}}=1$, we find a black hole mass of $M_{\bullet}=9.30_{-1.38}^{+1.26}\times 10^6 M_{\odot}$ from the mean spectra. The accretion rate is estimated to be $203.9_{-65.8}^{+61.0}\,L_{\rm Edd}c^{-2}$, suggesting a super-Eddington accretor, where $L_{\…
We present spectroscopic and photometric monitoring of NGC 3783 conducted throughout the first half of 2020. Time delays between the continuum variations and the response of the broad optical emission lines were clearly detected, and we report reverberation measurements for H$β$, HeII $λ4686$, H$γ$, and H$δ$. From the time delay in the broad H$β$ emission line and the line width in the variable portion of the spectrum, we derive a black hole mass of $M_{\rm BH} = 2.34^{+0.43}_{-0.43} \times 10^7$ M$_{\odot}$. This is slightly smaller than, but consistent with, previous determinations. However,…
A large reverberation mapping study of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 7469 has yielded emission-line lags for Hbeta 4861 and He II 4686 and a central black hole mass measurement of about 10 million solar masses, consistent with previous measurements. A very low level of variability during the monitoring campaign precluded meeting our original goal of recovering velocity-delay maps from the data, but with the new Hbeta measurement, NGC 7469 is no longer an outlier in the relationship between the size of the Hbeta-emitting broad-line region and the AGN luminosity. It was necessary to detrend the conti…
We present results from a fifteen-month campaign of high-cadence (~ 3 days) mid-infrared Spitzer and optical (B and V ) monitoring of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 6418, with the objective of determining the characteristic size of the dusty torus in this active galactic nucleus (AGN). We find that the 3.6 $μ$m and 4.5 $μ$m flux variations lag behind those of the optical continuum by $37.2^{+2.4}_{-2.2}$ days and $47.1^{+3.1}_{-3.1}$ days, respectively. We report a cross-correlation time lag between the 4.5 $μ$m and 3.6 $μ$m flux of $13.9^{+0.5}_{-0.1}$ days. The lags indicate that the dust emitting…
The nearby dwarf spiral galaxy NGC 4395 contains a broad-lined active galactic nucleus (AGN) of exceptionally low luminosity powered by accretion onto a central black hole of very low mass ($\sim10^4-10^5$ M$_\odot$). In order to constrain the size of the optical continuum emission region through reverberation mapping, we carried out high-cadence photometric monitoring of NGC 4395 in the $griz$ filter bands on two consecutive nights in 2022 April using the four-channel MuSCAT3 camera on the Faulkes Telescope North at Haleakalā Observatory. Correlated variability across the $griz$ bands is clea…
We report the results of reverberation mapping three bright Seyfert galaxies, Mrk 79, NGC 3227, and Mrk 841, from a campaign conducted from December 2016 to May 2017 with the Wyoming Infrared Observatory (WIRO) 2.3-meter telescope. All three of these targets have shown asymmetric broad H$β$ emission lines in the past, although their emission lines were relatively symmetric during our observations. We measured Hβ time lags for all three targets and estimated masses of their black holes -- for the first time in the case of Mrk 841. For Mrk 79 and NGC 3227, the data are of sufficient quality to r…
This is the third in a series of papers reporting on a large reverberation-mapping campaign aimed to study the properties of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with high accretion rates. We present new results on the variability of the optical Fe II emission lines in 10 AGNs observed by the Yunnan Observatory 2.4m telescope during 2012--2013. We detect statistically significant time lags, relative to the AGN continuum, in nine of the sources. This accurate measurement is achieved by using a sophisticated spectral fitting scheme that allows for apparent flux variations of the host galaxy, and severa…
Using robotic telescopes of the Universitatssternwarte Bochum near Cerro Armazones in Chile, we monitored the z=0.0377 Seyfert 1 galaxy WPVS48 (2MASX J09594263-3112581) in the optical (B and R) and near-infrared (NIR, J and Ks) with a cadence of two days. The light curves show unprecedented variability details. The NIR variation features of WPVS48 are consistent with the corresponding optical variations, but the features appear sharper in the NIR than in the optical, suggesting that the optical photons undergo multiple scatterings. The J and Ks emission, tracing the hot (1600 K) dust echo, lag…
Intensive X-ray/UVOIR continuum reverberation mapping of the Seyfert AGN MCG+08-11-11
University of Portsmouth(朴茨茅斯大学);Wayne State University(韦恩州立大学);University of Southampton(南安普顿大学);Spectral Sciences Inc.(光谱科学公司);University of St Andrews(圣安德鲁斯大学);Texas A&M University(德克萨斯农工大学);Tel Aviv University(特拉维夫大学);University of Durham(杜伦大学);Eureka Scientific Inc.(尤里卡科学公司);Texas Tech University(德克萨斯理工大学);University of Leicester(莱斯特大学)
We present optical continuum lags for two Seyfert 1 galaxies, MCG+08-11-011 and NGC 2617, using monitoring data from a reverberation mapping campaign carried out in 2014. Our light curves span the ugriz filters over four months, with median cadences of 1.0 and 0.6 days for MCG+08-11-011 and NGC\,2617, respectively, combined with roughly daily X-ray and near-UV data from Swift for NGC 2617. We find lags consistent with geometrically thin accretion-disk models that predict a lag-wavelength relation of $τ\propto λ^{4/3}$. However, the observed lags are larger than predictions based on standard th…
We describe the first results from a six-month long reverberation-mapping experiment in the ultraviolet based on 170 observations of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. Significant correlated variability is found in the continuum and broad emission lines, with amplitudes ranging from ~30% to a factor of two in the emission lines and a factor of three in the continuum. The variations of all the strong emission lines lag behind those of the continuum, with He II 1640 lagging behind the continuum by ~2.5 days and Lyman alpha 1215, C IV…
We present the results of a reverberation-mapping program targeting NGC5273, a nearby early-type galaxy with a broad-lined active galactic nucleus. Over the course of the monitoring program, NGC5273 showed strong variability that allowed us to measure time delays in the responses of the broad optical recombination lines to changes in the continuum flux. A weighted average of these measurements results in a black hole mass determination of $M_{\rm BH} = (4.7 \pm 1.6) \times 10^6$ M$_{\odot}$. An estimate of the size of the black hole sphere of influence in NGC5273 puts it just at the limit of t…
We have started automatized photometric monitoring of active galactic nuclei using the 46 cm telescope of the Wise Observatory in Israel. The telescope is specially equipped with narrow-band filters to perform high-fidelity photometric reverberation mapping of the accretion disk in V < 17 mag sources up to z ~ 0.1. Here, we describe the capability and accuracy of the experiment, and present the first science verification data obtained for the Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 279. With sub-diurnal sampling over more than two months, and typical flux measurement uncertainties of $1\%$, we are able to measur…
Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) are arguably one of the key AGN subclasses in investigating the origin of the black hole mass - stellar velocity dispersion (M-sigma) relation because of their high accretion rate and significantly low black hole mass. Currently, it is under discussion whether present-day NLS1s offset from the M-sigma relation. Using the directly measured stellar velocity dispersion of 93 NLS1s at z<0.1, and black hole mass estimates based on the updated mass estimators, we investigate the M-sigma relation of NLS1s in comparison with broad-line AGNs. We find no strong evi…
Reverberation mapping (RM) is a powerful approach for determining the nature of the broad-line region (BLR) in active galactic nuclei. However, inferring physical BLR properties from an observed spectroscopic time series is a difficult inverse problem. Here, we present a blind test of two widely used RM methods: MEMEcho (developed by Horne) and CARAMEL (developed by Pancoast and collaborators). The test data are simulated spectroscopic time series that track the H$α$ emission line response to an empirical continuum light curve. The underlying BLR model is a rotating, biconical accretion disc w…
We have decomposed the broad H-alpha, H-beta and H-gamma lines of 90 Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) into a superposition of a very broad and an intermediate Gaussian components (VBGC and IMGC) and discovered that the two Gaussian components evolve with FWHM of the whole emission lines. We suggest that the VBGC and the IMGC are produced in different emission regions, namely, Very Broad Line Region (VBLR) and Intermediate Line Region (IMLR). The details of the two components of H-alpha, H-beta and H-gamma lines indicate that the radius obtained from the emission line reverberation mapping normall…
We present the results of photometric and spectroscopic monitoring campaigns of the changing look AGN NGC 3516 carried out in 2018 to 2020 covering the wavelength range from the X-ray to the optical. The facilities included the telescopes of the CMO SAI MSU, the 2.3-m WIRO telescope, and the XRT and UVOT of Swift. We found that NGC 3516 brightened to a high state and could be classified as Sy1.5 during the late spring of 2020. We have measured time delays in the responses of the Balmer and He II 4686 lines to continuum variations. In the case of the best-characterized broad H-beta line, the de…
Indirectly resolving the line-emitting gas regions in distant Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) requires both high-resolution photometry and spectroscopy (i.e. through reverberation mapping). Emission in AGN originates on widely different scales; the broad-line region (BLR) has a typical radius less than a few parsec, the narrow-line region (NLR) extends out to hundreds of parsecs. But emission also appears on large scales from heated nebulae in the host galaxies (tenths of kpc). We propose a novel, data-driven method based on correlations between emission-line fluxes to identify which of the emiss…
Reverberation mapping (RM) is an efficient method to investigate the physical sizes of the broad line region (BLR) and dusty torus in an active galactic nucleus (AGN). The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission will provide multi-epoch spectroscopic data at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. These data can be used for RM experiments for bright AGNs. We present results of a feasibility test using SPHEREx data in the SPHEREx deep regions for the torus RM measurements. We investigate the physical properties of bright AGNs …
Based on the gravitational redshift, one prediction of Einstein's general relativity theory, of broad optical emission lines in active galactic nuclei (AGNs), a new method is proposed to estimate the virial factors $f$ in measuring black hole masses $M_{\rm{RM}}$ by the reverberation mapping of AGNs. The factors $f$ can be measured on the basis of two physical quantities, i.e. the gravitational redshifts $z_{\rm{g}}$ and full widths at half maxima $v_{\rm{FWHM}}$ of broad lines. In the past it has been difficult to determine the factors $f$ for individual AGNs. We apply this new method to seve…
We built r-band surface brightness profiles by SDSS data for 16 Seyfert galaxies observed in Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. Obtained profiles can be used for finding more accurate lightcurves for these galaxies.
Reverberation from scattering material around the black hole in active galactic nuclei is expected to produce a characteristic signature in a Fourier analysis of the time delays between directly-viewed continuum emission and the scattered light. Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1) are highly variable at X-ray energies, and are ideal candidates for the detection of X-ray reverberation. We show new analysis of a small sample of NLS1 that clearly shows the expected time-delay signature, providing strong evidence for the existence of a high covering fraction of scattering and absorbing material …
Previous studies of the Na I D interstellar absorption line doublet have shown that galactic winds occur in most galaxies with high infrared luminosities. However, in infrared-bright composite systems where a starburst coexists with an active galactic nucleus (AGN), it is unclear whether the starburst, the AGN, or both are driving the outflows. The present paper describes the results from a search for outflows in 35 infrared-faint Seyferts with 10^9.9 < L_IR/L_sun < 10^11, or, equivalently, star formation rates (SFR) of ~0.4 -- 9 solar masses per year, to attempt to isolate the source of the o…
The hidden broad-line regions (BLRs) in Seyfert 2 galaxies, which display broad emission lines (BELs) in their polarized spectra, are a key piece of evidence in support of the unified model for active galactic nuclei (AGNs). However, the detailed kinematics and geometry of hidden BLRs are still not fully understood. The virial factor obtained from reverberation mapping of type 1 AGNs may be a useful diagnostic of the nature of hidden BLRs in type 2 objects. In order to understand the hidden BLRs, we compile six type 2 objects from the literature with polarized BELs and dynamical measurements o…
Analyzing archival data from different telescopes, H2O megamaser Seyfert 2s appeared to exhibit higher nuclear radio luminosities than non-masing Seyfert 2s (Zhang et al. 2012). This has been confirmed by our follow-up study on multi-band (11, 6, 3.6, 2, 1.3 cm) radio properties of maser host Seyfert 2s, through systematic Effelsberg observations (Liu et al. 2017). The nuclear radio luminosity was supposed to be a suitable indicator to guide future AGN maser searches. Thus we performed a pilot survey with the Effelsberg telescope on H2O maser emission toward a small sample of radio-bright Seyf…
We present high angular resolution observations of the HCN(1-0) emission (at ~1" or ~34 pc), together with CO J = 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2 observations, toward the Seyfert 2 nucleus of M51 (NGC 5194). The overall HCN(1-0) distribution and kinematics are very similar to that of the CO lines, which have been indicated as the jet-entrained molecular gas in our past observations. In addition, high HCN(1-0)/CO(1-0) brightness temperature ratio of about unity is observed along the jets, similar to that observed at the shocked molecular gas in our Galaxy. These results strongly indicate that both diffuse an…
The evidence from velocity-resolved reverberation mapping showing a net infall of the broad-line region (BLR) of AGNs is reviewed. Different lines in many objects at different epochs give a consistent picture of BLR motions. The motions are dominated by virialized motion (rotation plus turbulence) with significant net inflow. The BLR mass influx is sufficient to power the AGN. The increasing blueshifting of lines with increasing ionization potential is a consequence of scattering off infalling material. The high blueshiftings of the UV lines in Narrow-Line Seyfert 1s are due to enhanced BLR in…
X-ray luminosities and spectral indices of 97 bright Seyfert 1 galaxies from XMM archive are analyzed in this article. Distribution of these values is random so we conclude that the model of emission should be at least two-parametric. Within the merging model of AGN the relation between black hole mass, stage of merging and observable X-ray parameters is proposed.
Q0957+561 was the first discovered gravitationally lensed quasar. The mirage shows two images of a radio-loud quasar at redshift z = 1.41. The time lag between these two images is well established around one year. We detected a very prominent variation in the optical brightness of Q0957+561A at the beginning of 2009, which allowed us to predict the presence of significant intrinsic variations in multi-wavelength light curves of Q0957+561B over the first semester of 2010. To study the predicted brightness fluctuations of Q0957+561B, we conducted an X-ray, NUV, optical and NIR monitoring campaig…
So far the masses of about 50 active galactic nuclei have been measured through the reverberation mapping technique (RM). Most measurements have been performed for objects of moderate luminosity and redshift, based on H$β$, which is also used to calibrate the scaling relation which allows single-epoch (SE) mass determination based on AGN luminosity and the width of different emission lines. The SE mass obtained from CIV$(1549 {\rmÅ})$ line shows a large spread around mean values, due to complex structure and gas dynamics of the relevant emission region. Direct RM measures of CIV exist for only…
Infrared photometry and later infrared spectroscopy provided powerful diagnostics to distinguish between the main emission mechanisms in galaxies: AGN and Starburst. After the pioneering work on infrared photometry with IRAS in the far-IR and the S.Pedro Martir and ESO ground-based work in the near-IR, ISO photometry extended up to 200um the coverage of the galaxies energy distributions. Then Spitzer collected accurate mid-infrared spectroscopy on different samples of galaxies. We will review the work done on the 12um galaxy sample since the times of IRAS photometry to the new Spitzer spectros…
Reverberation in the Narrow Fe K$α$ Line in the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 4151 with XRISM
University of Michigan(密歇根大学);The University of Maryland(马里兰大学);NASA/GSFC(美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心);CRESST II, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center(CRESST II,美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心);SRON Space Research Organization Netherlands(荷兰空间研究所);Technion(以色列理工学院);Center for Astrophysics | Harvard-Smithsonian(哈佛-史密森天体物理中心);Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam(阿姆斯特丹大学安顿·范·科克天文学研究所)
According to the standard paradigm, the strong and compact luminosity of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is due to multi-temperature black body emission originating from an accretion disk formed around a supermassive black hole. This central engine is thought to be surrounded by a dusty region along the equatorial plane and by ionized winds along the poles. The innermost regions cannot yet be resolved neither in the optical nor in the infrared and it is fair to say that we still lack a satisfactory understanding of the physical processes, geometry and composition of the central (sub-parsec) compo…
Reverberation-mapping-based scaling relations are often used to estimate the masses of black holes from single-epoch spectra of AGN. While the radius-luminosity relation that is the basis of these scaling relations is determined using reverberation mapping of the H$β$ line in nearby AGN, the scaling relations are often extended to use other broad emission lines, such as MgII, in order to get black hole masses at higher redshifts when H$β$ is redshifted out of the optical waveband. However, there is no radius-luminosity relation determined directly from MgII. Here, we present an attempt to perf…
We present the results of a recent reverberation mapping campaign for UGC 06728, a nearby low-luminosity Seyfert 1 in a late-type galaxy. Nightly monitoring in the spring of 2015 allowed us to determine an H$β$ time delay of $τ= 1.4 \pm 0.8$ days. Combined with the width of the variable H$β$ line profile, we determine a black hole mass of $M_{\rm BH} = (7.1 \pm 4.0) \times 10^5$ M$_{\odot}$. We also constrain the bulge stellar velocity dispersion from higher-resolution long slit spectroscopy along the galaxy minor axis and find $σ_{\star} = 51.6 \pm 4.9$ km s$^{-1}$. The measurements presented…
We present HI 21 cm spectroscopy from the GBT for the host galaxies of 31 nearby AGNs with direct M$_{\textrm{BH}}$ measurements from reverberation mapping. These are the first published HI detections for 12 galaxies, and the spectral quality is generally an improvement over archival data for the remainder of the sample. We present measurements of emission-line fluxes, velocity widths, and recessional velocities from which we derive HI mass, total gas mass, and redshifts. Combining M$_{\textrm{GAS}}$ with constraints on M$_{\textrm{STARS}}$ allows exploration of the baryonic content of these g…
We present two-dimensional maps of emission-line fluxes and kinematics, as well as of the stellar kinematics of the central few kpc of five bright nearby Seyfert galaxies -- Mrk\,6, Mrk\,79, Mrk\,348, Mrk\,607 and Mrk\,1058 -- obtained from observations with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) Integral Field Unit (IFU) on the Gemini North Telescope. The data cover the inner 3\farcs5$\times$5\farcs0 -- corresponding to physical scales in the range 0.6$\times$0.9 to 1.5$\times$2.2\,kpc$^2$ -- at a spatial resolution ranging from 110 to 280 pc with a spectral coverage of 4300 -- 7100\,Å a…
As one of the most interesting Seyfert 1 galaxies, PG 2130+099 has been the target of several reverberation mapping (RM) campaigns over the years. However, its measured broad H$β$ line responses have been inconsistent, with time lags of $\sim$200 days, $\sim$25 days, and $\sim$10 days being reported for different epochs while its optical luminosity changed no more than 40%. To investigate this issue, we conducted a new RM-campaign with homogenous and high cadence (about $\sim$3 days) for two years during 2017--2019 to measure the kinematics and structure of the ionized gas. We successfully det…
We present the results of an intensive six-month optical continuum reverberation mapping campaign of the Seyfert 1 galaxy PG 2130+099 at redshift z=0.063. The ground-based photometric monitoring was conducted on a daily basis with the robotic 46cm telescope of the Wise observatory located in Israel. Specially designed narrowband filters were used to observe the central engine of the active galactic nucleus (AGN), avoiding line contamination from the broad-line region (BLR). We aim to measure inter-band continuum time lags across the optical range and determine the size-wavelength relation for …
The changes of broad emission lines should be a crucial issue to understanding the physical properties of changing-look active galactic nucleus (CL-AGN). Here, we present the results of an intensive and homogeneous 6-month long reverberation mapping (RM) monitoring campaign during a low-activity state of the CL-AGN Seyfert galaxy NGC 3516. Photometric and spectroscopic monitoring was carried out during 2018--2019 with the Lijiang 2.4 m telescope. The sampling is 2 days in most nights, and the average sampling is $\sim$3 days. The rest frame time lags of H$α$ and H$β$ are $τ_{\rm{H}α}=7.56^{+4.…
Continuum Reverberation in Bright Quasars Using NASA/ATLAS
Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University(澳大利亚国立大学天文与天体物理研究学院);Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics (CGA), Australian National University(澳大利亚国立大学引力天体物理学中心);Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen’s University Belfast(贝尔法斯特女王大学数学与物理学院天体物理研究中心);Research Center for Space and Cosmic Evolution, Ehime University(爱媛大学宇宙演化研究中心);University of Belgrade-Faculty of Mathematics, Department of Astronomy(贝尔格莱德大学数学系天文学系);Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS)(天体物理学千年研究所);Instituto de Astrofísica, Facultad de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile(智利天主教Pontificia大学物理学院天体物理研究所)
We report results of the dust reverberation mapping (DRM) on the Seyfert 1 galaxy Z229-15 at z = 0.0273. Quasi-simultaneous photometric observations for a total of 48 epochs were acquired during the period 2017 July to 2018 December in B, V, J, H and Ks bands. The calculated spectral index (α) between B and V bands for each epoch was used to correct for the accretion disk (AD) component present in the infrared light curves. The observed α ranges between -0.99 and 1.03. Using cross correlation function analysis we found significant time delays between the optical V and the AD corrected J, H and…
We present Tully-Fisher distances for 24 AGN host galaxies with black hole mass ($M_\textrm{BH}$) measurements from reverberation mapping, as well as the first calibration of the $V-$band Tully-Fisher relation. Combining our measurements of HI 21cm emission with $HST$ and ground-based optical and near-infrared images allows multiple distance measurements for 19 galaxies and single measurements for the remaining 5. Separation of the nucleus from its host galaxy via surface brightness decomposition yields galaxy-only luminosities, thus allowing measurements of the distance moduli free of contami…
Flux variability is one of the defining characteristics of Seyfert galaxies, a class of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Though these variations are observed over a wide range of wavelengths, results on their flux variability characteristics in the ultra-violet (UV) band are very limited. We present here the long term UV flux variability characteristics of a sample of fourteen Seyfert galaxies using data from the International Ultraviolet Explorer acquired between 1978 and 1995. We found that all the sources showed flux variations with no statistically significant difference in the amplitude of U…
Hard X-ray spectra of 28 bright Seyfert galaxies observed with INTEGRAL were analyzed together with the X-ray spectra from XMM-Newton, Suzaku and RXTE. These broad-band data were fitted with a model assuming a thermal Comptonization as a primary continuum component. We tested several model options through a fitting of the Comptonized continuum accompanied by a complex absorption and a Compton reflection. Both the large data set used and the model space explored allowed us to accurately determine a mean temperature kTe of the electron plasma, the Compton parameter y and the Compton reflection s…
We discuss the results on the hot corona parameters of Active Galactic Nuclei that have been recently measured with NuSTAR. The values taken from the literature of a sample of nineteen bright Seyfert galaxies are analysed. Aims. The aim of this work is to look for correlations between coronal parameters, such as the photon index and cutoff energy (when a phenomenological model is adopted) or the optical depth and temperature (when a Comptonization model is used), with other parameters of the systems like the black hole mass or the Eddington ratio. We analysed the coronal parameters of the nine…
We simultaneously analyze the spectral line energy distributions (SLEDs) of CO and H2 of six local luminous infrared (IR) Seyfert galaxies. For the CO SLEDs, we used new Herschel/SPIRE FTS data (from J=4-3 to J=13-12) and ground-based observations for the lower-J CO transitions. The H2 SLEDs were constructed using archival mid-IR Spitzer/IRS and near-IR VLT/SINFONI data for the rotational and ro-vibrational H2 transitions, respectively. In total, the SLEDs contain 26 transitions with upper level energies between 5 and 15000 K. A single, constant density, model (n$_{H_2}$ ~ 10$^{4.5-6}$ cm$^{-3…
Spectroastrometry measures source astrometry as a function of wavelength/velocity. Reverberations of spectroastrometric signals naturally arise in broad-line regions (BLRs) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) as a result of the continuum variations that drive responses of the broad emission lines with time delays. Such signals provide a new diagnostic for mapping BLR kinematics and geometry, complementary to the traditional intensity reverberation mapping (RM) technique. We present the generic mathematical formalism for spectroastrometric RM and show that under realistic parameters of a phenomeno…
The dust reverberation mapping is one of powerful methods to investigate the structure of the dusty tori in AGNs, and it has been performed on more than a hundred type 1 AGNs. However, no clear results have been reported on type 2 AGNs because their strong optical-UV extinction completely hides their accretion disc emission. Here we focus on an X-ray-bright type 2 AGN, NGC 2110, and utilize 2-20 keV X-ray variation monitored by MAXI to trace disc emission, instead of optical-UV variation. Comparing it with light curves in the WISE infrared (IR) W1 band ($λ= 3.4$ $μ$m) and W2 band ($λ= 4.6$ $μ$…
Recent intensive Swift monitoring of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 yielded 282 usable epochs over 125 days across six UV/optical bands and the X-rays. This is the densest extended AGN UV/optical continuum sampling ever obtained, with a mean sampling rate <0.5 day. Approximately daily HST UV sampling was also obtained. The UV/optical light curves show strong correlations (r_max = 0.57 - 0.90) and the clearest measurement to date of interband lags. These lags are well-fit by a τpropto λ^4/3 wavelength dependence, with a normalization that indicates an unexpectedly large disk radius of 0.35 +/- 0…
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)