J/ApJ/818/L14 RM AGNs accretion rates and BH masses (Du+, 2016)
The fundamental plane of the broad-line region in active galactic nuclei.
Du P., Wang J.-M., Hu C., Ho L.C., Li Y.-R., Bai J.-M.
<Astrophys. J., 818, L14 (2016)>
=2016ApJ...818L..14D 2016ApJ...818L..14D (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Active gal. nuclei ; Accretion ; Line Profiles
Keywords: accretion, accretion disks; galaxies: active; galaxies: nuclei;
quasars: general; quasars: supermassive black holes
Abstract:
Broad emission lines in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) mainly arise
from gas photoionized by continuum radiation from an accretion disk
around a central black hole. The shape of the broad-line profile,
described by DHβ=FWHM/σHβ, the ratio of full width
at half maximum to the dispersion of broad Hβ, reflects the
dynamics of the broad-line region (BLR) and correlates with the
dimensionless accretion rate (dM/dt) or Eddington ratio
(Lbot/LEdd). At the same time, dM/dt and (Lbot/LEdd correlate
with RFe, the ratio of optical Fe ii to Hβ line flux emission.
Assembling all AGNs with reverberation mapping measurements of broad
Hβ, both from the literature and from new observations reported
here, we find a strong bivariate correlation of the form
log((dM/dt.Lbot/LEdd)=α+βDHβ+γRFe where
α=(2.47,0.31), β=-(1.59,0.82), and γ=(1.34,0.80). We
refer to this as the fundamental plane of the BLR. We apply the plane
to a sample of z<0.8 quasars to demonstrate the prevalence of
super-Eddington accreting AGNs are quite common at low redshifts.
Description:
We select all AGNs with reverberation mapping (RM) data (here only
broad Hβ line), which yield robust BH mass estimates needed for
our analysis. All RM AGNs before 2013 are summarized by Bentz et al.
(2013ApJ...767..149B 2013ApJ...767..149B). Our project to search for super-Eddington
accreting massive black holes (SEAMBHs) has monitored about 25
candidates and successfully measured Hβ lags (τHβ) in
14 AGNs to date (Du et al. 2015, J/ApJ/806/22) and other five objects
monitored between 2014 and 2015 (to be submitted). See section 2 for
further explanations.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 105 109 The sample of reverberation-mapped AGNs
refs.dat 152 35 References
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See also:
J/ApJ/806/129 : Space telescope RM project. II. Swift data (Edelson+, 2015)
J/ApJ/806/22 : SEAMBHs IV. Hβ time lags (Du+, 2015)
J/ApJ/782/45 : SEAMBHs. I. Mrk 142, Mrk 335, and IRAS F12397+3333 (Du+, 2014)
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/736/86 : FeII emission in SDSS type 1 AGNs (Dong+, 2011)
J/ApJ/687/78 : FeII emission in quasars (Hu+, 2008)
J/ApJ/613/682 : AGN central masses & broad-line region sizes (Peterson+, 2004)
J/A+A/309/81 : X-ray properties of AGN (Wang+, 1996)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 12 A12 --- Name Object identifier (1)
14- 18 F5.2 [10-7W] logL5100 [41.5/46] Log of the 5100 Angstrom luminosity;
in erg/s (2)
20- 23 F4.2 [10-7W] e_logL5100 [0.01/0.6] Uncertainty in logL5100
25- 28 F4.2 [Msun] logM [5.4/9.2] Log black hole mass (2)
30- 33 F4.2 [Msun] e_logM [0.03/0.9] Lower limit uncertainty in logM
35- 38 F4.2 [Msun] E_logM Upper limit uncertainty in logM
40- 44 F5.2 [-] logMdot [-3.4/3] Log dimensionless accretion rate (2)
46- 49 F4.2 [-] e_logMdot [0.1/1.9] Lower limit uncertainty in logMdot
51- 54 F4.2 [-] E_logMdot Upper limit uncertainty in logMdot
56- 60 I5 km/s FWHM [778/13211]? Full-Width at Half-Maximum
62- 64 I3 km/s e_FWHM [2/682]? Uncertainty in FWHM
66- 69 I4 km/s sigma [513/5377]? Hβ dispersion
71- 73 I3 km/s e_sigma [2/532]? Uncertainty in sigma
75- 78 F4.2 --- DHb [1/3.5]? Shape of broad-line Hβ profile
(3)
80- 83 F4.2 --- e_DHb [0.01/0.7]? Uncertainty in DHb
85- 88 F4.2 --- RFe [0.04/2]? Relative strength of broad optical
Fe II emission (4)
90 A1 --- f_RFe [e] Flag on RFe (5)
92-101 A10 --- Ref Reference(s); see refs.dat file
103-105 A3 --- f_Ref Flag on Ref (6)
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Note (1): "Combined" is the weighted averages of all the measurements
for the object above.
Note (2): Compiled from Du et al. (2015, J/ApJ/806/22).
Note (3): As a non-parametric description of the line profile, one can define:
DHβ=FWHM/σHβ where σHβ is the
dispersion (second moment) of the Hβ line. See Equation (2) in
section 1.
Note (4): The relative strength of broad optical FeII emission is expressed as:
RFe=FFeII/FHβ. See Equation 1 in section 1.
Note (5):
e = This NGC 5548 is measured from its mean annual spectra in the AGN
watch database; the average value is provided here.
Note (6): Flag as follows:
a = RFe is measured in this paper;
b = FWHM and sigma are measured from SDSS spectra (the Hbeta width of
SEAMBHs is significantly broadened by the 5" longslit of our campaign;
see details in Ref. 4);
c = the MCMC BH mass is used (see Section 2.2);
d = D_hb is taken from the latest measurements in Ref. 31. We first
calculate DHb for each measurement, and then average. In the main text,
we use these averaged numbers for the objects with multiple RM
measurements (treated as one point in all figures).
For NGC 7469, which was mapped twice Collier et al. (1998ApJ...500..162C 1998ApJ...500..162C)
and Ref. 24, the Hβ lags are not very different but the Hβ
FWHM is very different; take the values of FWHM measured by Ref. 31.
NGC 4051 and PG 1700+518 have very small values of DHb in Ref. 5, but
Ref. 31 provides new measurements, which are used here.
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: refs.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 2 I2 --- Ref Reference code
4- 22 A19 --- BibCode Reference bibcode
24- 60 A37 --- Auth Author's name(s)
62-152 A91 --- Comm Comment
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 10-May-2016