J/ApJ/763/L36 MgII and FeII flux of the blazar 3C 454.3 (Leon-Tavares+, 2013)
Flare-like variability of the Mg II λ2800 emission line in the
Γ-ray blazar 3C 454.3.
Leon-Tavares J., Chavushyan V., Patino-Alvarez V., Valtaoja E.,
Arshakian T.G., Popovic L.C., Tornikoski M., Lobanov A., Carraminana A.,
Carrasco L., Lahteenmaki A.
<Astrophys. J., 763, L36 (2013)>
=2013ApJ...763L..36L 2013ApJ...763L..36L
ADC_Keywords: Spectra, ultraviolet ; QSOs
Keywords: galaxies: active; galaxies: jets; gamma rays: galaxies;
line: formation; quasars: emission lines;
quasars: individual: 3C 454.3
Abstract:
We report the detection of a statistically significant flare-like
event in the MgII λ2800 emission line of 3C 454.3 during the
outburst of autumn 2010. The highest levels of emission line flux
recorded over the monitoring period (2008-2011) coincide with a
superluminal jet component traversing through the radio core. This
finding crucially links the broad emission line fluctuations to the
non-thermal continuum emission produced by relativistically moving
material in the jet and hence to the presence of broad-line region
clouds surrounding the radio core. If the radio core were located at
several parsecs from the central black hole, then our results would
suggest the presence of broad-line region material outside the inner
parsec where the canonical broad-line region is envisaged to be
located. We briefly discuss the implications of broad emission line
material ionized by non-thermal continuum in the context of virial
black hole mass estimates and gamma-ray production mechanisms.
Description:
The optical spectra used in this work are taken from the Ground-based
Observational Support of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope at the
University of Arizona monitoring program; details on the observational
setup and reduction process are presented in Smith et al.
(2009arXiv0912.3621S 2009arXiv0912.3621S). In this work we only consider spectra that have
been calibrated against the V-band magnitude.
The optical spectra of 3C 454.3 have been acquired over a period of
three years (2008-2011) and due to its redshift (z=0.859) we have had
access to the middle-UV region of the spectrum, allowing us to monitor
its MgIIλ2800 broad emission line and adjacent UV-continuum
λ3000.
Objects:
----------------------------------------------------------
RA (ICRS) DE Designation(s)
----------------------------------------------------------
22 53 57.75 +16 08 53.6 3C 454.3 = CGRaBS J2253+1608
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File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 45 206 FeII and MgII flux measurements in 2008-2011
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See also:
J/other/RMxAA/48.9 : MOJAVE/2cm AGN sample spectros. atlas (Torrealba+, 2012)
J/A+A/545/A113 : MOJAVE IX. Core shift effects (Pushkarev+, 2012)
J/ApJ/754/23 : Blazar mm + γ-ray luminosities (Leon-Tavares+, 2012)
J/ApJ/712/405 : Multiwavelength obs. of 3C 454.3 III. (Vercellone+, 2010)
J/AJ/134/799 : Multiwaveband polarimetry of 15 AGN (Jorstad+, 2007)
J/A+A/450/39 : BVRI photometry of 8 red blazars (Gu+, 2006)
J/MNRAS/367/1261 : Redshift survey in 15 quasar fields (Morris+, 2006)
J/ApJS/143/257 : AGN emission line properties (Kuraszkiewicz+, 2002)
J/A+AS/132/305 : Extragal. radio sources at 22, 37 & 87GHz (Terasranta+ 1998)
J/A+AS/122/271 : mm-monitoring of radio sources IV. (Reuter+ 1997)
http://james.as.arizona.edu/~psmith/Fermi/ : Ground-based Observational Support
of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope home page
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 9 F9.4 d JD Julian Date of observation; JD-2450000
11- 15 F5.3 10-16W/m2 MgII [1.05/1.82] Flux of MgII 280nm line (1)
17- 21 F5.3 10-16W/m2 e_MgII [0.01/0.2] Error in MgII (1)
23- 27 F5.3 10-16W/m2 FeII [1.3/8] Flux of FeII (1)
29- 33 F5.3 10-16W/m2 e_FeII Error in FeII (1)
35- 39 F5.3 10-16W/m2/nm UVcont [0.5/8] Flux of UV continuum at 300nm (2)
41- 45 F5.3 10-16W/m2/nm e_UVcont Error in UV3000 (2)
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Note (1): In units of 10-13 erg/s/cm2.
Note (2): In units of 10-14 erg/s/cm2/Angstrom.
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Greg Schwarz [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 21-Oct-2014