The Astrophysical Journal (Jan 2023)
The SDSS-V Black Hole Mapper Reverberation Mapping Project: Unusual Broad-line Variability in a Luminous Quasar
- Logan B. Fries,
- Jonathan R. Trump,
- Megan C. Davis,
- C. J. Grier,
- Yue Shen,
- Scott F. Anderson,
- Tom Dwelly,
- Michael Eracleous,
- Y. Homayouni,
- Keith Horne,
- Mirko Krumpe,
- Sean Morrison,
- Jessie C. Runnoe,
- Benny Trakhtenbrot,
- Roberto J. Assef,
- W. N. Brandt,
- Joel Brownstein,
- Collin Dabbieri,
- Alexander Fix,
- Gloria Fonseca Alvarez,
- Sara Frederick,
- P. B. Hall,
- Anton M. Koekemoer,
- Jennifer I-Hsiu Li,
- Xin Liu,
- Mary Loli Martínez-Aldama,
- Claudio Ricci,
- Donald P. Schneider,
- Hugh W. Sharp,
- Matthew J. Temple,
- Qian Yang,
- Grisha Zeltyn,
- Dmitry Bizyaev
Affiliations
- Logan B. Fries
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, 196A Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT 06269, USA
- Jonathan R. Trump
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, 196A Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT 06269, USA
- Megan C. Davis
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, 196A Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT 06269, USA
- C. J. Grier
- ORCiD
- Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona , 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison , Madison, WI 53706, USA
- Yue Shen
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Urbana, IL 61801, USA; National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- Scott F. Anderson
- ORCiD
- Astronomy Department, University of Washington , Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- Tom Dwelly
- ORCiD
- Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik , Giessenbachstraße, D-85748 Garching, Germany
- Michael Eracleous
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802, USA
- Y. Homayouni
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802, USA
- Keith Horne
- ORCiD
- SUPA Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews , Fife KY16 9SS, UK
- Mirko Krumpe
- Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik (AIP) , An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
- Sean Morrison
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- Jessie C. Runnoe
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University , Nashville, TN 37235, USA
- Benny Trakhtenbrot
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University , Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
- Roberto J. Assef
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Diego Portales , Av. Ejército Libertador 441, Santiago, Chile
- W. N. Brandt
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Department of Physics, 104 Davey Lab, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA
- Joel Brownstein
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah , 115 S. 1400 E., Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
- Collin Dabbieri
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University , Nashville, TN 37235, USA
- Alexander Fix
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado , 2000 Colorado Avenue, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Gloria Fonseca Alvarez
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, 196A Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT 06269, USA; NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , 950 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
- Sara Frederick
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University , Nashville, TN 37235, USA
- P. B. Hall
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University , Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
- Anton M. Koekemoer
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Jennifer I-Hsiu Li
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Xin Liu
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Urbana, IL 61801, USA; National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- Mary Loli Martínez-Aldama
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Física y Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso , Gran Bretaña 1111, Valparaíso, Chile; Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile , Casilla 36D, Santiago, Chile
- Claudio Ricci
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Diego Portales , Av. Ejército Libertador 441, Santiago, Chile; Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University , Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
- Donald P. Schneider
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802, USA
- Hugh W. Sharp
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, 196A Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT 06269, USA
- Matthew J. Temple
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Diego Portales , Av. Ejército Libertador 441, Santiago, Chile
- Qian Yang
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Urbana, IL 61801, USA; Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Grisha Zeltyn
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University , Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
- Dmitry Bizyaev
- ORCiD
- Apache Point Observatory and New Mexico State University , P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM, 88349-0059, USA; Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University , Moscow, Russia
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/acbfb7
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 948,
no. 1
p. 5
Abstract
We present a high-cadence multiepoch analysis of dramatic variability of three broad emission lines (Mg ii , H β , and H α ) in the spectra of the luminous quasar ( λ L _λ (5100 Å) = 4.7 × 10 ^44 erg s ^−1 ) SDSS J141041.25+531849.0 at z = 0.359 with 127 spectroscopic epochs over nine years of monitoring (2013–2022). We observe anticorrelations between the broad emission-line widths and flux in all three emission lines, indicating that all three broad emission lines “breathe” in response to stochastic continuum variations. We also observe dramatic radial velocity shifts in all three broad emission lines, ranging from Δ v ∼ 400 km s ^−1 to ∼800 km s ^−1 , that vary over the course of the monitoring period. Our preferred explanation for the broad-line variability is complex kinematics in the gas in the broad-line region. We suggest a model for the broad-line variability that includes a combination of gas inflow with a radial gradient, an azimuthal asymmetry (e.g., a hot spot), superimposed on the stochastic flux-driven changes to the optimal emission region (“line breathing”). Similar instances of line-profile variability due to complex gas kinematics around quasars are likely to represent an important source of false positives in radial velocity searches for binary black holes, which typically lack the kind of high-cadence data we analyze here. The long-duration, wide-field, and many-epoch spectroscopic monitoring of SDSS-V BHM-RM provides an excellent opportunity for identifying and characterizing broad emission-line variability, and the inferred nature of the inner gas environment, of luminous quasars.
Keywords
