J/ApJS/217/26 Lick AGN monitoring 2011: light curves (Barth+, 2015)
The Lick AGN monitoring project 2011: spectroscopic campaign and emission-line
light curves.
Barth A.J., Bennert V.N., Canalizo G., Filippenko A.V., Gates E.L.,
Greene J.E., Li W., Malkan M.A., Pancoast A., Sand D.J., Stern D., Treu T.,
Woo J.-H., Assef R.J., Bae H.-J., Brewer B.J., Cenko S.B., Clubb K.I.,
Cooper M.C., Diamond-Stanic A.M., Hiner K.D., Honig S.F., Hsiao E.,
Kandrashoff M.T., Lazarova M.S., Nierenberg A.M., Rex J., Silverman J.M.,
Tollerud E.J., Walsh J.L.
<Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 217, 26 (2015)>
=2015ApJS..217...26B 2015ApJS..217...26B
ADC_Keywords: Active gal. nuclei ; Spectroscopy
Keywords: galaxies: active; galaxies: nuclei; galaxies: Seyfert;
techniques: spectroscopic
Abstract:
In the Spring of 2011 we carried out a 2.5 month reverberation mapping
campaign using the 3m Shane telescope at Lick Observatory, monitoring
15 low-redshift Seyfert 1 galaxies. This paper describes the
observations, reductions and measurements, and data products from the
spectroscopic campaign. The reduced spectra were fitted with a
multicomponent model in order to isolate the contributions of various
continuum and emission-line components. We present light curves of
broad emission lines and the active galactic nucleus (AGN) continuum,
and measurements of the broad Hβ line widths in mean and rms
spectra. For the most highly variable AGNs we also measured broad
Hβ line widths and velocity centroids from the nightly spectra.
In four AGNs exhibiting the highest variability amplitudes, we detect
anticorrelations between broad Hβ width and luminosity,
demonstrating that the broad-line region "breathes" on short
timescales of days to weeks in response to continuum variations. We
also find that broad Hβ velocity centroids can undergo
substantial changes in response to continuum variations; in NGC 4593,
the broad Hβ velocity shifted by ∼250km/s over a 1 month period.
This reverberation-induced velocity shift effect is likely to
contribute a significant source of confusion noise to binary black
hole searches that use multi-epoch quasar spectroscopy to detect
binary orbital motion. We also present results from simulations that
examine biases that can occur in measurement of broad-line widths from
rms spectra due to the contributions of continuum variations and
photon-counting noise.
Description:
This project was allocated 69 nights at the Lick 3m Shane telescope,
distributed between 2011 March 27 and June 13. Observations were
conducted using the Kast double spectrograph (3440-5515Å on the
blue side and 5410-8200Å on the red side).
In order to extend our light curves for two AGNs, we also requested
additional observations from other observers using the Kast
spectrograph: Mrk 50 from 2011 January through March, and Zw 229-015
in June and July. For Zw 229-015, three additional observations were
taken 20-23 days after the end of our main campaign. See section 3.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 66 15 Sample properties and observation parameters
table4.dat 43 2241 Light curve data
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See also:
VII/270 : SDSS quasar catalog: tenth data release (Paris+, 2014)
II/294 : The SDSS Photometric Catalog, Release 7 (Adelman-McCarthy+, 2009)
VII/248 : Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei (12th Ed.) (Veron+ 2006)
J/ApJS/216/4 : SDSS-RM project: technical overview (Shen+, 2015)
J/ApJ/779/109 : 5100Å + Hβ light curves of NGC 5548 (Peterson+, 2013)
J/AJ/145/59 : Optical and mid-IR photometry of PTF 10nvg (Hillenbrand+, 2013)
J/ApJS/201/23 : Spectroscopy of 88 z<0.7 SDSS QSOs (Eracleous+, 2012)
J/ApJ/755/60 : Reverberation mapping for 5 Seyfert 1 galaxies (Grier+, 2012)
J/ApJ/753/L2 : Reverberation mapping of AGNs (Assef+, 2012)
J/ApJ/751/52 : AGN candidates from WISE, 2MASS & RASS (W2R) (Edelson+, 2012)
J/ApJ/732/121 : V-band and Hβ monitoring of Z299-15 (Barth+, 2011)
J/ApJS/189/15 : FeII emission in a sample of AGN spectra (Kovacevic+, 2010)
J/ApJ/716/993 : LAMP: reverberation mapping of H and He lines (Bentz+, 2010)
J/ApJ/680/169 : SDSS DR5 virial black hole masses (Shen+, 2008)
J/ApJ/670/92 : New sample of low-mass black holes in AGN (Greene+, 2007)
J/ApJ/613/682 : AGN central masses & broad-line region sizes (Peterson+, 2004)
J/A+A/417/515 : I Zw 1 unusual emission line spectrum (Veron-Cetty+, 2004)
J/A+A/369/57 : Monitoring Mkn 279 in BVRI, Hβ fluxes (Santos-Lleo+, 2001)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 10 A10 --- Name Galaxy identifier
12- 22 A11 --- AName Alternative name
24- 29 F6.4 --- z [0.009/0.05] Redshift from NED
31- 35 F5.1 Mpc DL [39/185.2] Luminosity distance (DL) (1)
37- 41 F5.3 mag Av [0.019/0.2] Galactic extinction (AV) (2)
43- 47 F5.1 deg PA [45/180] Slit position angle
49- 50 I2 --- Nobs [27/55] Total number of spectroscopic
observations
51 A1 --- n_Nobs [ab] Includes observations out of campaign (3)
53- 56 F4.2 d Samp [1.6/2.8] Mean sampling interval (4)
57 A1 --- n_Samp [c] Sample limited to main campaign (3)
59- 62 F4.2 --- AirM [1.05/1.58] Median airmass
64- 66 I3 --- S/N [49/121] Median S/N (5)
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Note (1): Luminosity distances are calculated from redshifts assuming a
WMAP9 cosmology with H0=69.7km/s/Mpc, ΩM=0.281, and
ΩΛ=0.7185 (Hinshaw et al. 2013ApJS..208...19H 2013ApJS..208...19H), using
the Wright (2006PASP..118.1711W 2006PASP..118.1711W) calculator.
Note (2): Galactic extinctions are from NED and are based on
Schlafly & Finkbeiner (2011ApJ...737..103S 2011ApJ...737..103S), assuming RV=3.1.
Note (3): Flag as follows:
a = Twelve of the 55 spectra of Mrk 50 were obtained before the start of our
main campaign during nights assigned to other projects.
b = Three of the 29 spectra of Zw 229-015 were obtained after the end of our
main campaign during nights assigned to other projects.
c = Mean sampling for Mrk 50 and Zw 229-015 was calculated based on
observations taken during the main campaign.
Note (4): Mean sampling is the mean time interval between successive
observations, in days. (The median sampling interval is 1.0d for all
AGNs.)
Note (5): The median S/N gives the median S/N per pixel between rest wavelengths
4600 and 4700Å in the extracted blue-side spectra, for the full
series of observations of each AGN.
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table4.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 10 A10 --- Name Galaxy identifier
12- 18 A7 --- Line Continuum (Us) or emission line source
(FeII, HeII, H-alpha, -beta, -delta, -gamma)
20- 26 F7.2 d HJD Heliocentric Julian Date; JD-2450000
28- 36 F9.4 aW/m2 Flux [0.462/1605] Observed flux (1)
38- 43 F6.4 aW/m2 e_Flux [0.002/4] Uncertainty in Flux (2)
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Note (1): Units are 10-15erg/cm2/s/Å for U-band continuum (Line=Us)
and 10-15erg/cm2/s for emission-line values.
Note (2): The listed uncertainties correspond to the propagated uncertainties
from photon counting and detector readout noise, and do not include
the additional contribution from residual flux-scaling errors.
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Greg Schwarz [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 11-May-2015