Probing the broad line region geometry and size of the gravitationally lensed quasar Q2237+0305 with microlensing time series

Abstract

Lensed quasars are powerful cosmic laboratories; they are used to simultaneously probe various astrophysical phenomena. Microlensing by stars within distant galaxies acts as strong gravitational lenses of multiply imaged quasars, and provides a unique and direct measurement of the lensed quasar internal structure. Microlensing of the continuum emitting region as well as the broad-line region (BLR) is well characterized by four observable indices, μcont, μBLR, WCI (wing-core), and RBI (red-blue), measured directly from the spectra. During the 2004−2007 monitoring period, image A of the quadruply lensed system Q2237+0305 underwent a strong microlensing amplification, while image D remained unaffected. We used 35 epochs of archival spectrophotometric data of Q2237+0305 obtained with the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory to develop an independent microlensing method for estimating the geometry and size of the BLR. We measured the index time series for the C IV line and the continuum emission at 1450 Å. We built a library of the simulated microlensing index time series that reproduce the observed times series based on three representative BLR models: Keplerian disk (KD), polar wind (PW), and equatorial wind (EW). After sampling the model parameter space, we find that KD is the predominant model, while PW and EW are less likely. We infer that the system is viewed at an intermediate viewing angle i ∼ 35°, and we estimate the most likely C IV BLR half-light radius r1/2 = 51 ± 23 light days. Our results are in good agreement with previous findings in the literature and extend the validity of the index-based approach to a temporal domain.