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Title: Continuum Reverberation Mapping of the Accretion Disks in Two Seyfert 1 Galaxies

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
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  1. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States); MIT Kavli Institute for Space and Astrophysics Research, Cambridge, MA (United States)
  2. Univ. of St. Andrews, Scotland (United Kingdom)
  3. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
  4. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States); Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (United States)
  5. Georgia State Univ., Atlanta, GA (United States)
  6. llumination Works LLC., Dublin, OH (United States)
  7. The Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
  8. Morehead State Univ., Morehead, KY (United States)
  9. Space Telescope Science Inst., Baltimore, MD (United States)
  10. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  11. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
  12. Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie, WY (United States); Sul Ross State Univ., Alpine, TX (United States)
  13. Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, Crimea (Russia)
  14. Las Cumbres Global Telescope Network, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
  15. Southwestern Univ., Georgetown, TX (United States)
  16. Univ. of Missouri, Columbia, MO (United States)
  17. Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie, WY (United States)
  18. South African Astronomical Observatory, Cape Town (South Africa)
  19. The Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States); Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
  20. Brigham Young Univ., Provo, UT (United States)
  21. Tel Aviv Univ., Tel Aviv (Israel)
  22. Univ. of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC (Australia)
  23. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)
  24. Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (United States)
  25. Univ. dell’Insubria, Como (Italy)
  26. United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD (United States)
  27. Australian National Univ., Canberra, ACT (Australia)
  28. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (United States)
  29. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States); Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL (United States)
  30. Univ. of Haifa, Haifa (Israel)
  31. Univ. of Missouri, Columbia, MO (United States); Southern African Large Telescope Foundation, Cape Town (South Africa)
  32. The Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States); Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  33. Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX (United States)
  34. Univ. Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS (Brazil)
  35. Carnegie Observatories, Pasadena, CA (United States)
  36. Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (United States)
  37. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  38. Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
  39. Univ. of Bath, Bath (United Kingdom)
  40. Technion, Haifa (Israel)
  41. Univ. of Johannesburg, Auckland Park (South Africa)

We present optical continuum lags for two Seyfert 1 galaxies, MCG+08-11-011 and NGC 2617, using monitoring data from a reverberation mapping campaign carried out in 2014. Our light curves span the ugriz filters over four months, with median cadences of 1.0 and 0.6 days for MCG+08-11-011 and NGC 2617, respectively, combined with roughly daily X-ray and near-UV data from Swift for NGC 2617. We find lags consistent with geometrically thin accretion-disk models that predict a lag-wavelength relation of τ ∝ λ 4/3. However, the observed lags are larger than predictions based on standard thin-disk theory by factors of 3.3 for MCG+08-11-011 and 2.3 for NGC 2617. Furthermore, these differences can be explained if the mass accretion rates are larger than inferred from the optical luminosity by a factor of 4.3 in MCG+08-11-011 and a factor of 1.3 in NGC 2617, although uncertainty in the SMBH masses determines the significance of this result. While the X-ray variability in NGC 2617 precedes the UV/optical variability, the long (2.6 day) lag is problematic for coronal reprocessing models.

Research Organization:
Krell Institute, Ames, IA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-97ER25308
OSTI ID:
1542018
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 854, Issue 2; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 40 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Long-term monitoring of the archetype Seyfert galaxy MCG-6-30-15: X-ray, optical and near-IR variability of the corona, disc and torus text January 2015
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Reverberation Mapping of Optical Emission Lines in Five Active Galaxies text January 2016
Long-term monitoring of Ark 120 with Swift text January 2016
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Swift monitoring of NGC 4151: Evidence for a Second X-ray/UV Reprocessing text January 2017
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Cited By (13)

X-ray/UV/optical variability of NGC 4593 with Swift: reprocessing of X-rays by an extended reprocessor journal August 2018
Quantifying the diffuse continuum contribution of BLR Clouds to AGN Continuum Inter-band Delays journal August 2018
Winds can ‘blow up’ AGN accretion disc sizes journal October 2018
Reconciling the quasar microlensing disc size problem with a wind model of active galactic nucleus journal November 2018
Accretion Disk Size Measurement and Time Delays in the Lensed Quasar WFI 2033–4723 journal December 2018
Supermassive Black Holes with High Accretion Rates in Active Galactic Nuclei. VIII. Structure of the Broad-line Region and Mass of the Central Black Hole in Mrk 142 journal December 2018
Quasar Accretion Disk Sizes from Continuum Reverberation Mapping in the DES Standard-star Fields journal January 2020
X-ray/UV/optical variability of NGC 4593 with Swift: Reprocessing of X-rays by an extended reprocessor text January 2017
Reconciling the Quasar Microlensing Disc Size Problem with a Wind Model of Active Galactic Nucleus text January 2018
Winds Can "Blow Up" AGN Accretion Disk Sizes text January 2018
Quantifying the Diffuse Continuum Contribution of BLR Clouds to AGN Continuum Inter-band Delays text January 2018
Quasar Accretion Disk Sizes from Continuum Reverberation Mapping in the DES Standard Star Fields text January 2018
Supermassive Black Holes with High Accretion Rates in Active Galactic Nuclei. VIII. Structure of the Broad-Line Region and Mass of the Central Black Hole in Mrk 142 text January 2018


Figures / Tables (16)