Статья

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

Misty C. BentzDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA; [email protected]K. D. DenneyC. J. GrierDepartment of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USAAaron J. BarthDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USAB. M. PetersonCenter for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics, The Ohio State University, 191 West Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USAM. VestergaardDark Cosmology Center, Niels Bohr Institute, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, DenmarkVardha N. BennertPhysics Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USAGabriela CanalizoDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USAGisella De RosaDepartment of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USAA. V. FilippenkoDepartment of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USAE. L. GatesUniversity of California Observatories/Lick Observatory, P.O. Box 85, Mount Hamilton, CA 95140, USAJenny E. GreeneDepartment of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Peyton Hall - Ivy Lane, Princeton, NJ 08544, USAWeidong LiDepartment of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USAMatthew A. MalkanDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USARichard W. PoggeCenter for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics, The Ohio State University, 191 West Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USADaniel SternJet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USATommaso TreuDepartment of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USAJong-Hak WooAstronomy Program, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

2013en

ABI

Аннотация

We present an updated and revised analysis of the relationship between the Hß 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 Hß time lag, which is assumed to yield the average Hß 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 R BLR-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 R-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.

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Идентификаторы

DOI: 10.1088/0004-637x/767/2/149

Цитирования и источники

Цитирований: 2Использованных источников: 0

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