The average size and temperature profile of quasar accretion disks
- Departamento de Física Teórica y del Cosmos. Universidad de Granada, Campus de Fuentenueva, E-18071 Granada (Spain)
- Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Vía Láctea S/N, La Laguna E-38200 Tenerife (Spain)
- Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States)
- Departamento de Astronomía y Astrofísica, Universidad de Valencia, E-46100 Burjassot, Valencia (Spain)
- Departamento de Física y Astronomía, Universidad de Valparaíso, Avda. Gran Bretaña 1111, Playa Ancha, Valparaíso 2360102 (Chile)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
We use multi-wavelength microlensing measurements of a sample of 10 image pairs from 8 lensed quasars to study the structure of their accretion disks. By using spectroscopy or narrowband photometry, we have been able to remove contamination from the weakly microlensed broad emission lines, extinction, and any uncertainties in the large-scale macro magnification of the lens model. We determine a maximum likelihood estimate for the exponent of the size versus wavelength scaling (r{sub s} ∝λ {sup p}, corresponding to a disk temperature profile of T∝r {sup –1/p}) of p=0.75{sub −0.2}{sup +0.2} and a Bayesian estimate of p = 0.8 ± 0.2, which are significantly smaller than the prediction of the thin disk theory (p = 4/3). We have also obtained a maximum likelihood estimate for the average quasar accretion disk size of r{sub s}=4.5{sub −1.2}{sup +1.5} lt-day at a rest frame wavelength of λ = 1026 Å for microlenses with a mean mass of M = 1 M {sub ☉}, in agreement with previous results, and larger than expected from thin disk theory.
- OSTI ID:
- 22351349
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 783, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Structure of the accretion disk in the lensed quasar Q2237+0305 from multi-epoch and multi-wavelength narrowband photometry
Strong chromatic microlensing in HE0047–1756 and SDSS1155+6346