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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Distance Probes of Dark Energy
A. G. Kim,Nikhil Padmanabhan,Greg Aldering,Steven W. Allen,Steven W. Allen,C. Baltay,Robert N. Cahn,C. B. D'Andrea,Neal Dalal,Kyle S. Dawson,Kelly D. Denney,Daniel J. Eisenstein,D. A. Finley,Wendy L. Freedman,Shirley Ho,Daniel E. Holz,Dan Kasen,Dan Kasen,Steve Kent,Richard Kessler,S. E. Kuhlmann,Eric V. Linder,Eric V. Linder,Paul Martini,Peter Nugent,Saul Perlmutter,Saul Perlmutter,Bradley M. Peterson,Adam G. Riess,David Rubin,M. Sako,N. V. Suntzeff,N. Suzuki,N. Suzuki,R. C. Thomas,W. M. Wood-Vasey,S. E. Woosley +36 more
TL;DR: The results from the Distances subgroup of the Cosmic Frontier Community Planning Study (Snowmass 2013) as discussed by the authors summarized the current state of the field as well as future prospects and challenges.
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Time-dependent Electron Acceleration in Blazar Transients: X-Ray Time Lags and Spectral Formation
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Journal ArticleDOI
Stellar Velocity Dispersion Measurements in High-Luminosity Quasar Hosts and Implications for the AGN Black Hole Mass Scale
Catherine J. Grier,Paul Martini,Paul Martini,Linda C. Watson,B. M. Peterson,Misty C. Bentz,Kalliopi Dasyra,M. Dietrich,Laura Ferrarese,Richard W. Pogge,Ying Zu +10 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present new stellar velocity dispersion measurements for four luminous quasars with the NIFS instrument and the ALTAIR laser guide star adaptive optics system on the Gemini North 8m telescope.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: How Broad Emission Line Widths Change When Luminosity Changes
Shu Wang,Shu Wang,Yue Shen,Lin-Hua Jiang,Catherine J. Grier,Catherine J. Grier,Keith Horne,Y. Homayouni,B. M. Peterson,B. M. Peterson,Jonathan R. Trump,W. N. Brandt,Patrick B. Hall,Luis C. Ho,Jennifer I-Hsiu Li,J. V. Hernández Santisteban,Karen Kinemuchi,Ian D. McGreer,Donald P. Schneider +18 more
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper acknowledge support from an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and NSF grant AST-1715579 and AST-1516784, respectively, as well as NASA grant HST-GO-15650 and NSERC grant 2017-05983.
Journal ArticleDOI
SALT long-slit spectroscopy of CTS C30.10: two-component Mg II line
J. Modzelewska,Bozena Czerny,K. Hryniewicz,Maciej Bilicki,Magdalena Krupa,A. Świȩtoń,Wojtek Pych,Andrzej Udalski,T. P. Adhikari,Francesco Petrogalli +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the structure and the variability of the Mg II line of a quasar CTS C30.10 (z = 0.9000) with the SALT telescope between December 2012 and March 2014 were investigated.
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