Evidence for Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei from Emission-Line Reverberation

By B. Peterson, A. Wandel. 2000

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Emission-line variability data for Seyfert 1 galaxies provide strong evidence for the existence of supermassive black holes in the nuclei of these galaxies and that the line-emitting gas is moving in the gravitational potential of that black hole. The time-delayed response of the emission lines to continuum variations is used to infer the size of the line-emitting region, which is then combined with measurements of the Doppler widths of the variable line components to estimate a virial mass. In the case of the best-studied galaxy, NGC 5548, various emission lines spanning an order of magnitude in distance from the central source show the expected V ∝ r-1/2 correlation between distance and line width and are thus consistent with a single value for the mass. Two other Seyfert galaxies, NGC 7469 and 3C 390.3, show a similar relationship. We compute the ratio of luminosity to mass for these three objects and the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4051 and find that the gravitational force on the line-emitting gas is much stronger than radiation pressure. These results strongly support the paradigm of gravitationally bound broad emission line region clouds.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/950e18403583c4f1c6c9d95de5e665d73a05824b

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Citations in the corpus

Systematic Errors in the Estimation of Black Hole Masses by Reverberation Mapping (2000, methodology): “Peterson & Wandel (2000) performed the same test on two other galaxies, NGC 7469 and 3C 390.3, again finding consistency, but with poorer data.”
Early Growth and Efficient Accretion of Massive Black Holes at High Redshift (2003, background): “…AGNs with suitable multiple emission line measurements demonstrate a robust virial relationship between their line widths and variability time lags (Peterson & Wandel 1999, 2000; Onken & Peterson 2002); while only four AGNs are testable so far, the general similarity of AGN spectra (i.e., line…”
An expanded Mbh–σ diagram, and a new calibration of active galactic nuclei masses (2010, methodology): “To convert these VPs into black hole masses requires the multiplication by a scaling factor f which is related to the geometry and orientation of the clouds and effectively converts the measured velocity widths into an intrinsic Keplerian velocity (Peterson & Wandel 2000; Onken et al. 2004).”
Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei: Past, Present and Future Research (2004, methodology): “Reassuringly, the virial hypothesis has recently received strong observational support from the work of Peterson & Wandel (2000) and Onken & Peterson (2002).”
Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of High-Redshift Active Galactic Nuclei. I. A Metallicity-Accretion Rate Relationship (2004, methodology): “For three AGNs, reverberation masses were also determined using C iv (Peterson & Wandel 2000) and were consistent with the masses obtained from H .”
THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY REVERBERATION MAPPING PROJECT: TECHNICAL OVERVIEW (2014, background): “The observed relationship between time delay and velocity width for multiple emission lines in the same source is apparently consistent with this hypothesis28 (Peterson & Wandel 1999, 2000; Kollatschny 2003; Peterson et al. 2004; Bentz et al. 2010a).”
Completion of a Survey and Detailed Study of Double-peaked Emission Lines in Radio-loud Active Galactic Nuclei (2003, background): “Estimates of the mass of the central black hole in 3C 390.3 from reverberation mapping range from 3× 108 M⊙ (Peterson & Wandel 2000) to 2× 109 M⊙ (Sergeev et al. 2002).”
The Effect of Radiation Pressure on Virial Black Hole Mass Estimates and the Case of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies (2008, methodology): “The BH mass can thus be derived using the virial theorem,MBH = f∆V 2RBLR/G, where ∆V is the width of the broad emission line andf is a scaling factor which depends on the physical properties of the BLR (e.g. Peterson & Wandel 2000).”
The AGN Black Hole Mass Database (2014, background): “…USA 3 University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA ship is observed between time delays and line widths of different emission species in a single object: time delays are inversely proportional to the square of the line widths (e.g., Peterson & Wandel 1999, 2000; Onken & Peterson 2002).”
ESTIMATING BLACK HOLE MASSES IN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI USING THE Mg ii λ2800 EMISSION LINE (2009, background): “…between the radius of the broad-line region (BLR) and the velocity width of broad emission lines for single objects supports the idea that the BLR gas is virialized and that its velocity field is dominated by the gravity of the BH (Peterson & Wandel 1999, 2000; Onken & Peterson 2002).”
THE LOW-LUMINOSITY END OF THE RADIUS–LUMINOSITY RELATIONSHIP FOR ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2013, background): “A subset of objects in the reverberation sample have measurements for several different emission lines throughout the ultraviolet and optical portions of their spectra, and the multiple emission lines show a virial behavior (e.g., Peterson & Wandel 1999, 2000; Kollatschny 2003; Bentz et al. 2010).”
On Black Hole Masses and Radio Loudness in Active Galactic Nuclei (2000, background): “Significant progress in reverberation mappings over the past few years established the radius luminosity relation for the BLR (Kaspi et al. 2000), and strongly suggests Keplerian dynamics in a few well explored cases (e.g. Peterson & Wandel 2000).”
On the black hole–bulge mass relation in active and inactive galaxies (2001, background): “…basic premise is that the dominant mechanism responsible for the width of the broad emission lines is the gravitational potential of the central black hole, and that the linewidths reflect the keplerian velocities of the line-emitting material (see Peterson & Wandel 2000 for supporting evidence).”
Central Masses and Broad-Line Region Sizes of Active Galactic Nuclei. II. A Homogeneous Analysis of a Large Reverberation-Mapping Database (2004, background): “The justification for this assumption is simply that a virial relationship between time delay and line width has already been established for several objects (Peterson & Wandel 1999, 2000; Onken & Peterson 2002; Kollatschny 2003).”
Systematic effects in measurement of black hole masses by emission-line reverberation of active galactic nuclei: Eddington ratio and inclination (2006, background): “(1) is valid (Peterson & Wandel 1999, 2000; Onken & Peterson 2002; Kollatschny 2003a).”
Biases in Virial Black Hole Masses: An SDSS Perspective (2007, background): “In a handful of cases, measurements ofV and R for several lines in the same object have shownV ∝ R−1/2, consistent with the virial hypothesis (e.g., Peterson & Wandel 2000).”
Determining Central Black Hole Masses in Distant Active Galaxies and Quasars. II. Improved Optical and UV Scaling Relationships (2002, methodology): “The factor f is on the order of unity and depends on the geometry and the details of the kinematics (see, e.g., Peterson & Wandel 1999, 2000; Fromerth &Melia 2000; Krolik 2001;McLure &Dunlop 2001).”