The LSST Era of Supermassive Black Hole Accretion Disk Reverberation Mapping

Kovačević, Andjelka; Radović, Viktor; Ilić, D.; Popovic, L. C.; Assef, Roberto J.; Sánchez-Sáez, P.; Nikutta, Robert; Raiteri, C. M.; Yoon, Ilsang; Homayouni, Y.; Li, Yan-Rong; Čaplar, Neven; Panda, Swayamtrupta; Ricci, Cláudio; Jankov, Isidora; Landt, Hermine; Wolf, Christian; Kovačević-Dojčinović, Jelena; Lakićević, M.; Savić, Đorđe; Vince, O.; Simić, Saša; Cvorovic-Hajdinjak, Iva; Marčeta-Mandić, Sladjana

doi:10.3847/1538-4365/ac88ce

Cited by 15 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 142 publications

(213 reference statements)

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“…The accuracy of the lags can be 5% or 15% with a 2 or 5 days cadence, respectively (Pozo Nuñez et al 2023). As studied in Kovačević et al (2022), if the observational strategy for these fields has a cadence of 1-5 days and duration >9 yr, the expected number of sources, whose continuum lags can be successfully measured, is >1000 for each DDF (10 square degree) in any filter. Therefore, the DDFs will become ideal laboratories to measure CRM BH mass as well as investigate the possibility of disentangling the R BLR (Czerny et al 2023) and R CER through the photometric light curves.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating AGN Black Hole Masses via Continuum Reverberation Mapping in the Era of LSST

Wang

Guo

Woo

2023

ApJL

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Spectroscopic reverberation mapping (RM) is a direct approach widely used to determine the mass of black holes (BHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). However, it is very time consuming and difficult to apply to a large AGN sample. The empirical relation between the broad-line region size and luminosity (Hβ R BLR–L) provides a practical alternative yet is subject to large scatter and systematic bias. Based on the relation between the continuum emitting region size and luminosity (R CER–L) reported by Netzer (2022), we present a new BH mass estimator via continuum RM (CRM) by comparing R CER and R BLR, assuming that the continuum lags are dominated by the diffuse continuum emission. Using a sample of 21 AGNs, we find a tight R BLR–R CER relation (scatter∼0.28 dex) and that R BLR is larger than R CER at 5100 Å by an average factor of 8.1. This tight relation enables the BH mass estimation based on the CRM combined with the velocity information. Applying the relation to rest objects in our CRM sample, we demonstrate that the predicted R BLR,CRM follows the existing Hβ R BLR–L relation well and the estimated CRM BH masses are consistent with the RM/single-epoch BH masses using Hβ. This method will provide significant applications for BH mass estimation thanks to the short continuum lags and the easily accessible high-cadence, large-area photometric data, especially in the era of Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating AGN Black Hole Masses via Continuum Reverberation Mapping in the Era of LSST

Wang

Guo

Woo

2023

ApJL

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“…However, despite the ZTF light curves being generally better than other surveys, the ability to detect lags in the survey data is still limited, for example, by the cadence and S/N for very short lags, and by weak variability in many light curves. In the future, the Vera Rubin Observatory will provide higher cadence (e.g., in the Deep Drilling Fields) and more accurate light curves with wider sky coverage and additional filter bands (e.g., Brandt et al 2018;Ivezić et al 2019;Kovacevic et al 2022). It will significantly push forward our outstanding of the accretion-disk physics and variability mechanism in AGNs, and distinguish the X-ray reprocessing scenario from other pictures (e.g., the CHAR model; Sun et al 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active Galactic Nuclei Continuum Reverberation Mapping Based on Zwicky Transient Facility Light Curves

Guo

Barth

Wang

2022

ApJ

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We perform a systematic survey of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) continuum lags using ∼3 days cadence gri-band light curves from the Zwicky Transient Facility. We select a sample of 94 type 1 AGNs at z < 0.8 with significant and consistent inter-band lags based on the interpolated cross-correlation function method and the Bayesian method JAVELIN. Within the framework of the “lamp-post” reprocessing model, our findings are: (1) The continuum emission (CE) sizes inferred from the data are larger than the disk sizes predicted by the standard thin-disk model. (2) For a subset of the sample, the CE size exceeds the theoretical limit of the self-gravity radius (12 lt-days) for geometrically thin disks. (3) The CE size scales with continuum luminosity as R CE ∝ L 0.48±0.04 with a scatter of 0.2 dex, analogous to the well-known radius–luminosity relation of broad Hβ. These findings suggest a significant contribution of diffuse continuum emission from the broad-line region (BLR) to AGN continuum lags. We find that the R CE–L relation can be explained by a photoionization model that assumes ∼23% of the total flux comes from the diffuse BLR emission. In addition, the ratio of the CE size and model-predicted disk size anticorrelates with the continuum luminosity, which is indicative of a potential nondisk BLR lag contribution evolving with the luminosity. Finally, a robust positive correlation between the CE size and black hole mass is detected.

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“…This is clearly different from the measurement of the continuum time delay, where dense sampling is essential, as argued already by Brandt et al (2018). For this reason, Kovačević et al (2022) argued that useful measurements can be done only for DDF, and some of the cadences were favoured. Simulations performed by Pozo Nuñez et al ( 2012) also request the 2 -5 day cadence for continuum delays with LSST, likely to meet in DDF fields.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…The current description of the Vera Rubin Observatory can be found in the work of Ivezić et al (2019), general expectations of the LSST discoveries in the field of AGN were discussed by Brandt et al (2018), and specific predictions for the mapping of AGN accretion disks with LSST were presented by Kovačević et al (2022). The prospects for the continuum time delays from accretion disks were also discussed by Yu et al (2020).…”

Section: On Behalf Of the Lsst-agn Science Collaboration Cnpq Fellowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expectations for time-delay measurements in active galactic nuclei with the Vera Rubin Observatory

Panda¹,

Prince²,

Jaiswal³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Context. The Vera Rubin Observatory will provide an unprecedented set of time-dependent observations of the sky. The planned Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) operating for 10 years will provide dense lightcurves for thousands of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in Deep Drilling Fields (DDFs) and less dense lightcurves for millions of AGN . Aims. In this paper, we model the prospects for measuring the time delays for the AGN emission lines with respect to the continuum, using these data. Methods. We model the artificial lightcurves using Timmer-König algorithm, we use the exemplary cadence to sample them (one for the Main Survey and one for the Deep Drilling Field), we supplement lightcurves with the expected contamination by the strong emission lines (Hβ, Mg II and CIV as well as with Fe II pseudo-continuum and the starlight). We choose the suitable photometric bands appropriate for the redshift and compare the assumed line time delay with the recovered time delay for 100 statistical realizations of the light curves. Results. We show that time delays for emission lines can be well measured from the Main Survey for the bright tail of the quasar distribution (about 15% of all sources) with the accuracy within 1σ error, for DDFs results for fainter quasars are also reliable when all 10 years of data are used. There are also some prospects to measure the time delays for the faintest quasars at the smallest redshifts from the first two years of data, and eventually even from the first season. The entire quasar population will allow obtaining results of apparently high accuracy but in our simulations, we see a systematic offset between the assumed and recovered time delay depending on the redshift and source luminosity which will not disappear even in the case of large statistics. Such a problem might affect the slope of the radius-luminosity relation and cosmological applications of quasars if simulations correcting for such effects are not performed.

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The LSST Era of Supermassive Black Hole Accretion Disk Reverberation Mapping

Cited by 15 publications

References 142 publications

Estimating AGN Black Hole Masses via Continuum Reverberation Mapping in the Era of LSST

Estimating AGN Black Hole Masses via Continuum Reverberation Mapping in the Era of LSST

Active Galactic Nuclei Continuum Reverberation Mapping Based on Zwicky Transient Facility Light Curves

Expectations for time-delay measurements in active galactic nuclei with the Vera Rubin Observatory

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