Reverberation mapping of the broad line region: application to a hydrodynamical line-driven disk wind solution

Journal Article · Wed Aug 10 04:00:00 EDT 2016 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/827/1/53· OSTI ID:22868805

Waters, Tim; Proga, Daniel ^[1]; Kashi, Amit ^[2]; Eracleous, Michael ^[3]; Barth, Aaron J. ^[4]; Greene, Jenny ^[5]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Pkwy, Las Vegas, NV, 89154-4002 (United States)
2. Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics, University of Minnesota, 116 Church St. SE. Minneapolis, MN 55455 (United States)
3. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
4. Department of Physics and Astronomy,University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697 (United States)
5. Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)

The latest analysis efforts in reverberation mapping are beginning to allow reconstruction of echo images (or velocity-delay maps) that encode information about the structure and kinematics of the broad line region (BLR) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Such maps can constrain sophisticated physical models for the BLR. The physical picture of the BLR is often theorized to be a photoionized wind launched from the AGN accretion disk. Previously we showed that the line-driven disk wind solution found in an earlier simulation by Proga and Kallman is virialized over a large distance from the disk. This finding implies that, according to this model, black hole masses can be reliably estimated through reverberation mapping techniques. However, predictions of echo images expected from line-driven disk winds are not available. Here, after presenting the necessary radiative transfer methodology, we carry out the first calculations of such predictions. We find that the echo images are quite similar to other virialized BLR models such as randomly orbiting clouds and thin Keplerian disks. We conduct a parameter survey exploring how echo images, line profiles, and transfer functions depend on both the inclination angle and the line opacity. We find that the line profiles are almost always single peaked, while transfer functions tend to have tails extending to large time delays. The outflow, despite being primarily equatorially directed, causes an appreciable blueshifted excess on both the echo image and line profile when seen from lower inclinations (i≲45{sup ∘}). This effect may be observable in low ionization lines such as Hβ.

• OSTI ID: 22868805
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 827; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ACCRETION DISKS
BLACK HOLES
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DISTANCE
EMISSION
FORECASTING
GALAXIES
GALAXY NUCLEI
HYDRODYNAMICS
MASS
OPACITY
PHOTOIONIZATION
QUASARS
RADIANT HEAT TRANSFER
TIME DELAY
TRANSFER FUNCTIONS