Abstract
The structure of the broad line region (BLR) is an essential ingredient
in the determination of active galactic nuclei (AGN) virial black hole
masses, which in turn are important to study the role of black holes in
galaxy evolution. Constraints on the BLR geometry and dynamics can be
obtained from velocity-resolved studies using reverberation mapping data
(i.e. monitoring data). However, monitoring data are observationally
expensive and only available for a limited sample of AGN, mostly
confined to the local Universe. Here we explore a new version of a
Bayesian inference, physical model of the BLR which uses an individual
spectrum and prior information on the BLR size from the
radius-luminosity relation, to model the AGN BLR geometry and dynamics.
We apply our model to a sample of 11 AGN, which have been previously
modelled using monitoring data. Our single-epoch BLR model is able to
constrain some of the BLR parameters with inferred parameter values that
agree within the uncertainties with those determined from the modelling
of monitoring data. We find that our model is able to derive stronger
constraints on the BLR for AGN with broad emission lines that
qualitatively have more substructure and more asymmetry, presumably as
they contain more information to constrain the physical model. The
performance of this model makes it a practical and cost-effective tool
to determine some of the BLR properties of a large sample of low and
high redshift AGN, for which monitoring data are not available.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Tidsskrift | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
| ISSN | 0035-8711 |
| Status | Accepteret/In press - 1 sep. 2019 |