St Andrews Research Repository

St Andrews University Home
View Item 
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  • Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project : estimating masses of black holes in quasars with single-epoch spectroscopy

Thumbnail
View/Open
Bont_2020_ApJ_903_112.pdf (1.405Mb)
Date
10/11/2020
Author
Bontà, Elena Dalla
Peterson, Bradley M.
Bentz, Misty C.
Brandt, W. N.
Ciroi, Stefano
De Rosa, Gisella
Fonseca Alvarez, Gloria
Grier, Catherine J.
Hall, P. B.
Santisteban, Juan V. Hernandez
Ho, Luis C.
Homayouni, Y.
Horne, Keith
Kochanek, C. S.
Li, Jennifer I-Hsiu
Morelli, Lorenzo
Pizzella, Alessandro
Pogge, R. W.
Schneider, D. P.
Shen, Yue
Trump, J. R.
Vestergaard, Marianne
Keywords
Active galactic nuclei
Quasars
Supermassive black holes
QB Astronomy
QC Physics
3rd-DAS
Metadata
Show full item record
Altmetrics Handle Statistics
Altmetrics DOI Statistics
Abstract
It is well known that reverberation mapping of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) reveals a relationship between AGN luminosity and the size of the broad-line region, and that use of this relationship, combined with the Doppler width of the broad emission line, enables an estimate of the mass of the black hole at the center of the active nucleus based on a single spectrum. An unresolved key issue is the choice of parameter used to characterize the line width, either FWHM or line dispersion σline (the square root of the second moment of the line profile). We argue here that use of FWHM introduces a bias, stretching the mass scale such that high masses are overestimated and low masses are underestimated. Here we investigate estimation of black hole masses in AGNs based on individual or "single-epoch" observations, with a particular emphasis in comparing mass estimates based on line dispersion and FWHM. We confirm the recent findings that, in addition to luminosity and line width, a third parameter is required to obtain accurate masses, and that parameter seems to be Eddington ratio. We present simplified empirical formulae for estimating black hole masses from the Hβ λ4861 and C iv λ1549 emission lines. While the AGN continuum luminosity at 5100 Å is usually used to predict the Hβ reverberation lag, we show that the luminosity of the Hβ broad component can be used instead without any loss of precision, thus eliminating the difficulty of accurately accounting for the host-galaxy contribution to the observed luminosity.
Citation
Bontà , E D , Peterson , B M , Bentz , M C , Brandt , W N , Ciroi , S , De Rosa , G , Fonseca Alvarez , G , Grier , C J , Hall , P B , Santisteban , J V H , Ho , L C , Homayouni , Y , Horne , K , Kochanek , C S , Li , J I-H , Morelli , L , Pizzella , A , Pogge , R W , Schneider , D P , Shen , Y , Trump , J R & Vestergaard , M 2020 , ' The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project : estimating masses of black holes in quasars with single-epoch spectroscopy ' , Astrophysical Journal , vol. 903 , no. 2 , 112 . https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/abbc1c
Publication
Astrophysical Journal
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/abbc1c
ISSN
0004-637X
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2020. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of theCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Description
Funding: JVHS and KH acknowledge support from UK STFC grant ST/R000824/1.
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
http://arxiv.org/abs/2007.02963
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/23080

Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Advanced Search

Browse

All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunderThis CollectionBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunder

My Account

Login

Open Access

To find out how you can benefit from open access to research, see our library web pages and Open Access blog. For open access help contact: openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Accessibility

Read our Accessibility statement.

How to submit research papers

The full text of research papers can be submitted to the repository via Pure, the University's research information system. For help see our guide: How to deposit in Pure.

Electronic thesis deposit

Help with deposit.

Repository help

For repository help contact: Digital-Repository@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Give Feedback

Cookie policy

This site may use cookies. Please see Terms and Conditions.

Usage statistics

COUNTER-compliant statistics on downloads from the repository are available from the IRUS-UK Service. Contact us for information.

© University of St Andrews Library

University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter