Abstract
Abstract We present models of the Hβ-emitting broad-line region (BLR) in seven Seyfert 1 galaxies from the Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2011 sample, drawing inferences on the BLR structure and dynamics as well as the mass of the central supermassive black hole. We find that the BLR is generally a thick disk, viewed close to face-on, with preferential emission back toward the ionizing source. The dynamics in our sample range from near-circular elliptical orbits to inflowing or outflowing trajectories. We measure black hole masses of for PG 1310−108, for Mrk 50, for Mrk 141, for Mrk 279, for Mrk 1511, for NGC 4593, and for Zw 229−015. We use these black hole mass measurements along with cross-correlation time lags and line widths to recover the scale factor f used in traditional reverberation mapping measurements. Combining our results with other studies that use this modeling technique, which brings our sample size to 16, we calculate a scale factor that can be used for measuring black hole masses in other reverberation mapping campaigns. When using the root-mean-square (rms) spectrum and using the line dispersion to measure the line width, we find pred = 0.57 ± 0.19. Finally, we search for correlations between f and other AGN and BLR parameters and find marginal evidence that f is correlated with M BH and the BLR inclination angle, but no significant evidence of a correlation with the AGN luminosity or Eddington ratio.
Highlights
Supermassive black holes are thought to play an important role in galaxy formation and evolution
Pancoast et al (2014b, hereafter P14) used the model of Pancoast et al (2014a) to model the broad-line region (BLR) of five active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2008 (LAMP 2008) sample (Bentz et al 2009b; Walsh et al 2009), and Grier et al (2017, hereafter G17) expanded the sample by modeling four AGNs from a 2010 campaign carried out at MDM Observatory. The results from these analyses find an Hβemitting BLR that is a thick disk with kinematics that are best described by a combination of elliptical orbits and inflowing gas, consistent with the velocity-resolved reverberation mapping methods
For each AGN, we show a geometric model of the BLR from the posterior sample, chosen to be typical of the geometries in the full posterior sample (Figure 3)
Summary
Supermassive black holes are thought to play an important role in galaxy formation and evolution. High-quality reverberation mapping data sets have enabled velocity-resolved analyses that look individually at how different parts of the broad emission line change, allowing inferences to be drawn about the structure and dynamics of the BLR (Bentz et al 2009b; Denney et al 2009a, 2010; Barth et al 2011a, 2011b; Grier et al 2013b; Du et al 2016; Pei et al 2017) These results are generally consistent with inflowing gas or elliptical orbits, but some have shown signs of gas outflow (Denney et al 2009b; Du et al 2016).
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