Kinematics of the Broad-line Region of 3C 273 from a Ten-year Reverberation Mapping Campaign [GA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1811.03812


Despite many decades of study, the kinematics of the broad-line region of 3C 273 are still poorly understood. We report a new, high signal-to-noise, reverberation mapping campaign carried out from Nov 2008 to Mar 2018 that allows the determination of time lags between emission lines and the variable continuum with high precision. The time lag of variations in H\beta\ relative to those of the 5100\AA\ continuum is $146.8_{-12.1}^{+8.3}$ days in the rest frame. The time lag of the H\gamma\ emission line is found to be nearly the same as for H\beta. The lag of the Fe II emission is $322.0_{-57.9}^{+55.5}$ days, longer by a factor of $\sim$2 than for the Balmer lines. The velocity-resolved lag measurements of the H\beta\ line show a complex structure which can be possibly explained by a Keplerian disk or virialized motion with some inflowing radial velocity in the H\beta-emitting region. The decomposition of its HST images yields a host stellar mass of $M_* = 10^{11.3 \pm 0.7} M_{\odot}$. Taking the virial factor of $f_{\rm BLR} = 1.3$, we derive a BH mass of $M_{\bullet} = 4.1_{-0.4}^{+0.3} \times 10^8 M_{\odot}$ and an accretion rate of $9.3\,L_{\rm Edd}\,c^{-2}$ from the H\beta\ line.

Read this paper on arXiv…

Z. Zhang, P. Du, P. Smith, et. al.
Mon, 12 Nov 18
34/68

Comments: 16 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables, submitted to ApJ