The Astrophysical Journal (Jan 2023)

What Does the Geometry of the Hβ BLR Depend On?

  • Lizvette Villafaña,
  • Peter R. Williams,
  • Tommaso Treu,
  • Brendon J. Brewer,
  • Aaron J. Barth,
  • Vivian U,
  • Vardha N. Bennert,
  • Hengxiao Guo,
  • Misty C. Bentz,
  • Gabriela Canalizo,
  • Alexei V. Filippenko,
  • Elinor Gates,
  • Michael D. Joner,
  • Matthew A. Malkan,
  • Jong-Hak Woo,
  • Bela Abolfathi,
  • Thomas Bohn,
  • K. Azalee Bostroem,
  • Andrew Brandel,
  • Thomas G. Brink,
  • Sanyum Channa,
  • Maren Cosens,
  • Edward Donohue,
  • Goni Halevi,
  • Carol E. Hood,
  • J. Chuck Horst,
  • Maxime de Kouchkovsky,
  • Benjamin Kuhn,
  • Douglas C. Leonard,
  • Raúl Michel,
  • Melanie Kae B. Olaes,
  • Daeseong Park,
  • Jordan N. Runco,
  • Remington O. Sexton,
  • Isaac Shivvers,
  • Chance L. Spencer,
  • Benjamin E. Stahl,
  • Samantha Stegman,
  • Jonelle L. Walsh,
  • WeiKang Zheng

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/accc84
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 948, no. 2
p. 95

Abstract

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We combine our dynamical modeling black-hole mass measurements from the Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2016 sample with measured cross-correlation time lags and line widths to recover individual scale factors, f , used in traditional reverberation-mapping analyses. We extend our sample by including prior results from Code for AGN Reverberation and Modeling of Emission Lines ( caramel ) studies that have utilized our methods. Aiming to improve the precision of black-hole mass estimates, as well as uncover any regularities in the behavior of the broad-line region (BLR), we search for correlations between f and other AGN/BLR parameters. We find (i) evidence for a correlation between the virial coefficient ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}({f}_{\mathrm{mean},\sigma })$ and black-hole mass, (ii) marginal evidence for a similar correlation between ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}({f}_{\mathrm{rms},\sigma })$ and black-hole mass, (iii) marginal evidence for an anticorrelation of BLR disk thickness with ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}({f}_{\mathrm{mean},\mathrm{FWHM}})$ and ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}({f}_{\mathrm{rms},\mathrm{FWHM}})$ , and (iv) marginal evidence for an anticorrelation of inclination angle with ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}({f}_{\mathrm{mean},\mathrm{FWHM}})$ , ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}({f}_{\mathrm{rms},\sigma })$ , and ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}({f}_{\mathrm{mean},\sigma })$ . Last, we find marginal evidence for a correlation between line-profile shape, when using the root-mean-square spectrum, ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}{(\mathrm{FWHM}/\sigma )}_{\mathrm{rms}}$ , and the virial coefficient, ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}({f}_{\mathrm{rms},\sigma })$ , and investigate how BLR properties might be related to line-profile shape using caramel models.

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