The Low-luminosity End of the Radius-Luminosity Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei
Misty C. Bentz,Kelly D. Denney,Catherine J. Grier,Aaron J. Barth,Bradley M. Peterson,Marianne Vestergaard,Marianne Vestergaard,Vardha N. Bennert,Gabriela Canalizo,Gisella De Rosa,Alexei V. Filippenko,Elinor L. Gates,Jenny E. Greene,Weidong Li,Matthew A. Malkan,Richard W. Pogge,Daniel Stern,Tommaso Treu,Jong-Hak Woo +18 more
TLDR
In this article, the authors present an updated and revised analysis of the relationship between the H{beta} broadline region (BLR) radius and the luminosity of the active galactic nucleus (AGN).Abstract:
We present an updated and revised analysis of the relationship between the H{beta} broad-line region (BLR) radius and the luminosity of the active galactic nucleus (AGN). Specifically, we have carried out two-dimensional surface brightness decompositions of the host galaxies of nine new AGNs imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3. The surface brightness decompositions allow us to create ''AGN-free'' images of the galaxies, from which we measure the starlight contribution to the optical luminosity measured through the ground-based spectroscopic aperture. We also incorporate 20 new reverberation-mapping measurements of the H{beta} time lag, which is assumed to yield the average H{beta} BLR radius. The final sample includes 41 AGNs covering four orders of magnitude in luminosity. The additions and updates incorporated here primarily affect the low-luminosity end of the R{sub BLR}-L relationship. The best fit to the relationship using a Bayesian analysis finds a slope of {alpha}= 0.533{sup +0.035}{sub -0.033}, consistent with previous work and with simple photoionization arguments. Only two AGNs appear to be outliers from the relationship, but both of them have monitoring light curves that raise doubt regarding the accuracy of their reported time lags. The scatter around the relationship is found to be 0.19more » {+-} 0.02 dex, but would be decreased to 0.13 dex by the removal of these two suspect measurements. A large fraction of the remaining scatter in the relationship is likely due to the inaccurate distances to the AGN host galaxies. Our results help support the possibility that the R{sub BLR}-L relationship could potentially be used to turn the BLRs of AGNs into standardizable candles. This would allow the cosmological expansion of the universe to be probed by a separate population of objects, and over a larger range of redshifts.« lessread more
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Black hole feedback in the luminous quasar PDS 456
Emanuele Nardini,James Reeves,James Reeves,J. Gofford,J. Gofford,Fiona A. Harrison,Guido Risaliti,V. Braito,M. Costa,G. Matzeu,Dominic J. Walton,Ehud Behar,Steven E. Boggs,Finn Erland Christensen,William W. Craig,C. J. Hailey,Giorgio Matt,Jon M. Miller,P. T. O'Brien,D. Stern,T. J. Turner,Martin Ward +21 more
TL;DR: A signature in x-ray spectra of a strong persistent outflow in the quasar PDS 456 is seen, estimating a broad solid angle spanned by the wind that enables a far greater impact on the host galaxy than narrower jet outflows.
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The Black Hole Mass–Stellar Velocity Dispersion Relation of Narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxies
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the relation of NLS1s in comparison with broad-line AGNs and find no strong evidence that the NLS 1s deviates from the relation, which is defined by reverberation-mapped type 1 AGNs.
Journal ArticleDOI
Supermassive black holes with high accretion rates in active galactic nuclei. i. first results from a new reverberation mapping campaign
Pu Du,Chen Hu,Kai-Xing Lu,Fang Wang,Jie Qiu,Yan-Rong Li,Jin-Ming Bai,Shai Kaspi,Hagai Netzer,Jian-Min Wang +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report the first results from a large project to measure black hole (BH) mass in high accretion rate active galactic nuclei (AGNs).
Journal ArticleDOI
Black hole mass estimates and emission-line properties of a sample of redshift z > 6.5 quasars
Gisella De Rosa,Bram Venemans,Roberto Decarli,M. Gennaro,Robert A. Simcoe,M. Dietrich,Bradley M. Peterson,Fabian Walter,Stephan Frank,Richard G. McMahon,Paul C. Hewett,Daniel J. Mortlock,Chris Simpson +12 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the analysis of optical and near-infrared spectra of the only four z > 6.5 quasars known to date, discovered in the UKIDSS-LAS and VISTA-VIKING surveys.
Journal ArticleDOI
A ∼50,000 m⊙ solar mass black hole in the nucleus of rgg 118
TL;DR: In this article, the authors presented optical and X-ray observations of the dwarf galaxy RGG 118 taken with the Magellan Echellette Spectrograph on the 6.5 m Clay Telescope and Chandra Xray Observatory.
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