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Register a new userThe Relationship Between Luminosity and Broad-Line Region Size in Active Galactic Nuclei
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We reinvestigate the relationship between the characteristic broad-line region size (R_blr) and the Balmer emission-line, X-ray, UV, and optical continuum luminosities. Our study makes use of the best available determinations of R_blr for a large number of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) from Peterson et al. Using their determinations of R_blr for a large sample of AGNs and two different regression methods, we investigate the robustness of our correlation results as a function of data sub-sample and regression technique. Though small systematic differences were found depending on the method of analysis, our results are generally consistent. Assuming a power-law relation R_blr propto L^alpha, we find the mean best-fitting alpha is about 0.67+/-0.05 for the optical continuum and the broad Hbeta luminosity, about 0.56+/-0.05 for the UV continuum luminosity, and about 0.70+/-0.14 for the X-ray luminosity. We also find an intrinsic scatter of about 40% in these relations. The disagreement of our results with the theoretical expected slope of 0.5 indicates that the simple assumption of all AGNs having on average same ionization parameter, BLR density, column density, and ionizing spectral energy distribution, is not valid and there is likely some evolution of a few of these characteristics along the luminosity scale.
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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 ${cal D}_{_{rm Hbeta}}={rm FWHM}/sigma_{_{rm Hbeta}}$, the ratio of full width at half maximum to the dispersion of broad H$beta$, reflects the dynamics of the broad-line region (BLR) and correlates with the dimensionless accretion rate ($dot{mathscr{M}}$) or Eddington ratio ($L_{rm bol}/L_{rm Edd}$). At the same time, $dot{mathscr{M}}$ and $L_{rm bol}/L_{rm Edd}$ correlate with ${cal R}_{rm Fe}$, the ratio of optical Fe II to H$beta$ line flux emission. Assembling all AGNs with reverberation mapping measurements of broad H$beta$, both from the literature and from new observations reported here, we find a strong bivariate correlation of the form $log(dot{mathscr{M}},L_{rm bol}/L_{rm Edd})=alpha+beta{cal D}_{_{rm Hbeta}}+gamma{cal R}_{rm Fe},$ where $alpha=(2.47,0.31)$, $beta=-(1.59,0.82)$ and $gamma=(1.34,0.80)$. 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.
It is known that the dependence of the emission-line luminosity of a typical cloud in the active galactic nuclei broad-line regions (BLRs) upon the incident flux of ionizing continuum can be nonlinear. We study how this nonlinearity can be taken into account in estimating the size of the BLR by means of the reverberation methods. We show that the BLR size estimates obtained by cross-correlation of emission-line and continuum light curves can be much (up to an order of magnitude) less than the values obtained by reverberation modelling. This is demonstrated by means of numerical cross-correlation and reverberation experiments with model continuum flares and emission-line transfer functions and by means of practical reverberation modelling of the observed optical spectral variability of NGC 4151. The time behaviour of NGC 4151 in the H_alpha and H_beta lines is modelled on the basis of the observational data by Kaspi et al. (1996, ApJ, 470, 336) and the theoretical BLR model by Shevchenko (1984, Sov. Astron. Lett., 10, 377; 1985, Sov. Astron. Lett., 11, 35). The values of the BLR parameters are estimated that allow to judge on the size and physical characteristics of the BLR. The small size of the BLR, as determined by the cross-correlation method from the data of Kaspi et al. (1996, ApJ, 470, 336), is shown to be an artifact of this method. So, the hypothesis that the BLR size varies in time is not necessitated by the observational data.
We have measured the stellar velocity dispersions (sigma_*) and estimated the central black hole (BH) masses for over 900 broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) observed with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The sample includes objects which have redshifts up to z=0.452, high quality spectra, and host galaxy spectra dominated by an early-type (bulge) component. The AGN and host galaxy spectral components were decomposed using an eigenspectrum technique. The BH masses (M_BH) were estimated from the AGN broad-line widths, and the velocity dispersions were measured from the stellar absorption spectra of the host galaxies. The range of black hole masses covered by the sample is approximately 10^6 < M_BH < 10^9 M_Sun. The host galaxy luminosity-velocity dispersion relationship follows the well-known Faber-Jackson relation for early-type galaxies, with a power-law slope 4.33+-0.21. The estimated BH masses are correlated with both the host luminosities (L_{H}) and the stellar velocity dispersions (sigma_*), similar to the relationships found for low-redshift, bulge-dominated galaxies. The intrinsic scatter in the correlations are large (~0.4 dex), but the very large sample size allows tight constraints to be placed on the mean relationships: M_BH ~ L_H^{0.73+-0.05} and M_BH ~ sigma_*^{3.34+-0.24}. The amplitude of the M_BH-sigma_* relation depends on the estimated Eddington ratio, such that objects with larger Eddington ratios have smaller black hole masses than expected at a given velocity dispersion.
Most results of the reverberation monitoring of active galaxies showed a universal scaling of the time delay of the Hbeta emission region with the monochromatic flux at 5100 A, with very small dipersion. Such a scaling favored the dust-based formation mechanism of the Broad Line Region (BLR). Recent reverberation measurements showed that actually a significant fraction of objects exhibits horter lags than the previously found scaling. Here we demonstrate that these shorter lags can be explained by the old concept of scaling of the BLR size with the ionization parameter. Assuming a universal value of this parameter and universal value of the cloud density reproduces the distribution of observational points in the time delay vs. monochromatic flux plane, provided that a range of black hole spins is allowed. However, a confirmation of the new measurements for low/moderate Eddington ratio sources is strongly needed before the dust-based origin of the BLR can be excluded.
This paper reports results of the third-year campaign of monitoring super-Eddington accreting massive black holes (SEAMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) between 2014-2015. Ten new targets were selected from quasar sample of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which are generally more luminous than the SEAMBH candidates in last two years. H$beta$ lags ($tau_{_{rm Hbeta}}$) in five of the 10 quasars have been successfully measured in this monitoring season. We find that the lags are generally shorter, by large factors, than those of objects with same optical luminosity, in light of the well-known $R_{_{rm Hbeta}}-L_{5100}$ relation. The five quasars have dimensionless accretion rates of $dot{mathscr{M}}=10-10^3$. Combining measurements of the previous SEAMBHs, we find that the reduction of H$beta$ lags tightly depends on accretion rates, $tau_{_{rm Hbeta}}/tau_{_{R-L}}proptodot{mathscr{M}}^{-0.42}$, where $tau_{_{R-L}}$ is the H$beta$ lag from the normal $R_{_{rm Hbeta}}-L_{5100}$ relation. Fitting 63 mapped AGNs, we present a new scaling relation for the broad-line region: $R_{_{rm Hbeta}}=alpha_1ell_{44}^{beta_1},minleft[1,left(dot{mathscr{M}}/dot{mathscr{M}}_cright)^{-gamma_1}right]$, where $ell_{44}=L_{5100}/10^{44},rm erg~s^{-1}$ is 5100 AA continuum luminosity, and coefficients of $alpha_1=(29.6_{-2.8}^{+2.7})$ lt-d, $beta_1=0.56_{-0.03}^{+0.03}$, $gamma_1=0.52_{-0.16}^{+0.33}$ and $dot{mathscr{M}}_c=11.19_{-6.22}^{+2.29}$. This relation is applicable to AGNs over a wide range of accretion rates, from $10^{-3}$ to $10^3$. Implications of this new relation are briefly discussed.
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