THE LOW-LUMINOSITY END OF THE RADIUS–LUMINOSITY RELATIONSHIP FOR ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI

By M. Bentz, K. Denney, C. Grier, A. Barth, B. Peterson, M. Vestergaard, V. Bennert, G. Canalizo, G. de Rosa, A. Filippenko and 8 more. 2013

476 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present an updated and revised analysis of the relationship between the Hβ 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 Hβ time lag, which is assumed to yield the average Hβ 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 RBLR–L relationship. The best fit to the relationship using a Bayesian analysis finds a slope of , 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 0.19 ± 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 RBLR–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.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3ae44184cb493c0d15b6dc9c02ed8b6758b58dc1

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Citations in the corpus

SPACE TELESCOPE AND OPTICAL REVERBERATION MAPPING PROJECT. II. SWIFT AND HST REVERBERATION MAPPING OF THE ACCRETION DISK OF NGC 5548 (2015, unknown): “One way to do this is image decomposition, as has been performed for NGC 5548 by Bentz et al. (2009), Bentz et al. (2013) and Mehdipour et al. (2015).”
Supermassive Black Holes with High Accretion Rates in Active Galactic Nuclei. IX. 10 New Observations of Reverberation Mapping and Shortened Hβ Lags (2018, methodology): “In SEAMBH2013–2014, we fitted the spectra of all the quasars in Data Release 7 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using the fitting procedure in Hu et al. (2008a, 2008b), then estimated their BH masses and accretion rates by applying the normal RHβ–L5100 relation in Bentz et al. (2013).”
A ∼50,000 M⊙ SOLAR MASS BLACK HOLE IN THE NUCLEUS OF RGG 118 (2015, methodology): “We use the Hα emission line to estimate ∆V (Greene & Ho 2005), and LHα as a proxy for RBLR (Kaspi et al. 2000; Peterson et al. 2004; Greene & Ho 2005; Bentz et al. 2009, 2013).”
Physical Properties of 15 Quasars at z ≳ 6.5 (2017, background): “Several studies of this kind have shown that the continuum luminosity and RBLR of AGN in the local universe correlate strongly (e.g. Kaspi et al. 2005, Bentz et al. 2013).”
THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN: X-RAYS DRIVE THE UV THROUGH NIR VARIABILITY IN THE 2013 ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS OUTBURST IN NGC 2617 (2013, background): “Reverberation mapping studies ofthe Hβ emission line in local AGN indicate that there is a tight correlation between the AGN continuum linosity at 5100 Å andRBLR (Kaspi et al. 2005; Bentz et al. 2009, 2013; Zu et al. 2011).”
THE LICK AGN MONITORING PROJECT 2011: SPECTROSCOPIC CAMPAIGN AND EMISSION-LINE LIGHT CURVES (2015, background): “Recent work finds rBLR ∝ L 0.53±0.04 5100 for the full sample of reverberationmapped AGNs, whereL5100 is the AGN continuum luminosity 22 atλ = 5100 Å (Bentz et al. 2013).”
Measuring the Masses of Supermassive Black Holes (2014, background): “As the precison of mass measurement improves, even in the immediately foreseeable future the efficacy of the comparisons will be limited by uncertainties in the distances to the nearest AGNs on account of their peculiar motions relative to the Hubble flow (Bentz et al. 2013).”
PS1-10jh: THE DISRUPTION OF A MAIN-SEQUENCE STAR OF NEAR-SOLAR COMPOSITION (2013, methodology): “Since then, the relationship between L and RBLR has been more-accurately determined for Hβ (Peterson et al. 2004; Bentz et al. 2013), and for several other emission lines (Bentz et al. 2010).”
Properties of flat-spectrum radio-loud Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies (2014, background): “The size of the BLR gives also the luminosity of the accretion disk (RBLR ∝ L 1/2 disk, e.g. Ghisellini & Tavecchio 2009; see also Bentz et al. 2013), which in turn has been normalised to the Article number, page 9 of 35 Eddington value LEdd = 1.3× 10 38 ( M M⊙ ) [erg s−1].”
Modelling reverberation mapping data – II. Dynamical modelling of the Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2008 data set (2013, methodology): “…of the distance of this gas from the central ionizing source in the accretion disc are of the order of light days for lower luminosity AGNs such as Seyfert galaxies and this distance increases with AGN luminosity (Wandel, Peterson & Malkan 1999; Kaspi et al. 2000; Bentz et al. 2006, 2013).”
THE DISCOVERY OF THE FIRST “CHANGING LOOK” QUASAR: NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE PHYSICS AND PHENOMENOLOGY OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2014, methodology): “Additionally, we estimate the characteristic radius of the broad-line region in 2000 using the R−L relation calibrated by Bentz et al. (2013).”
Revisiting the Unified Model of Active Galactic Nuclei (2015, methodology): “Reverberation mapping (RM) has been used, for years, to map the distribution of the line emitting gas, mostly Hβ, in the BLR (“line RM”, see Kaspi et al. 2000, Bentz et al. 2013, and references therein).”
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Hα and Hβ Reverberation Measurements from First-year Spectroscopy and Photometry (2017, background): “Figure 11 presents the R−L relationship measured by Bentz et al. (2013) and shows the location of our new Hβ lag measurements.”
RELATIONS BETWEEN CENTRAL BLACK HOLE MASS AND TOTAL GALAXY STELLAR MASS IN THE LOCAL UNIVERSE (2015, methodology): “This equation was derived following the approach outlined in Greene & Ho (2005) for using the broad Hα line, but incorporates the updated radius-luminosity relationship from Bentz et al. (2013).”
DWARF GALAXIES WITH OPTICAL SIGNATURES OF ACTIVE MASSIVE BLACK HOLES (2013, methodology): “We follow the approach outlined in Greene & Ho (2005b) to estimate virial BH masses using the FWHM and luminosity of broad Hα, but with the modified radius-luminosity relationship of Bentz et al. (2013).”
PS16dtm: A Tidal Disruption Event in a Narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxy (2017, methodology): “We estimate the mass of the black hole at the center of CSS100217’s NLS1 host galaxy using the relation between luminosity and radius of the broad line region (Bentz et al. 2013).”
The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe (2014, methodology): “The sub-sample of SMBH with masses determined by reverberation mapping can be used to calibrate a relation between MBH and a combination of the widths of the broad emission-lines and the optical continuum luminosity in Type 1 AGN (e.g. Kaspi et al. 2000, Bentz et al. 2013).”
STELLAR VELOCITY DISPERSION MEASUREMENTS IN HIGH-LUMINOSITY QUASAR HOSTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AGN BLACK HOLE MASS SCALE (2013, methodology): “The HST observations (Bentz et al. 2009a, 2013) were taken using the ACS F550M filter and the WFPC2 F547M filter, while the images used by Jiang et al. (2011) were taken with the WFPC2 F814W filter.”
BLACK HOLE MASS ESTIMATES AND EMISSION-LINE PROPERTIES OF A SAMPLE OF REDSHIFT z > 6.5 QUASARS (2013, background): “RM studies of Hβ emission in local AGNs have lead to the discovery of a tight correlation between the AGN continuum luminosity and the distance of the emitting gas (RBLR − L relation; Kaspi et al. 2005; Bentz et al. 2009, 2013; Zu et al. 2011).”