MICROLENSING OF QUASAR BROAD EMISSION LINES: CONSTRAINTS ON BROAD LINE REGION SIZE
- Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Via Lactea S/N, La Laguna E-38200, Tenerife (Spain)
- Departamento de Fisica Teorica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada, Campus de Fuentenueva, E-18071 Granada (Spain)
- Department of Astronomy and the Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, The Ohio State University, 4055 McPherson Lab, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43221 (United States)
- Departamento de Astronomia y Astrofisica, Universidad de Valencia, E-46100 Burjassot, Valencia (Spain)
- Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- Departamento de Fisica y Astronomia, Universidad de Valparaiso, Avda. Gran Bretana 1111, Valparaiso (Chile)
We measure the differential microlensing of the broad emission lines between 18 quasar image pairs in 16 gravitational lenses. We find that the broad emission lines are in general weakly microlensed. The results show, at a modest level of confidence (1.8{sigma}), that high ionization lines such as C IV are more strongly microlensed than low ionization lines such as H{beta}, indicating that the high ionization line emission regions are more compact. If we statistically model the distribution of microlensing magnifications, we obtain estimates for the broad line region size of r{sub s} = 24{sup +22} {sub -15} and r{sub s} = 55{sup +150} {sub -35} lt-day (90% confidence) for the high and low ionization lines, respectively. When the samples are divided into higher and lower luminosity quasars, we find that the line emission regions of more luminous quasars are larger, with a slope consistent with the expected scaling from photoionization models. Our estimates also agree well with the results from local reveberation mapping studies.
- OSTI ID:
- 22167707
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 764, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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