The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Low-ionization Broad-line Widths and Implications for Virial Black Hole Mass Estimation
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Final Published Version
Author
Wang, ShuShen, Yue

Jiang, Linhua
Horne, Keith
Brandt, W. N.

Grier, C. J.
Ho, Luis C.

Homayouni, Yasaman
Li, Jennifer I-Hsiu
Schneider, Donald P.
Trump, Jonathan R.

Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Steward ObservIssue Date
2019-08-26
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IOP PUBLISHING LTDCitation
Shu Wang et al 2019 ApJ 882 4Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNALRights
Copyright © 2019. The American Astronomical Society.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
The width of the broad emission lines in quasars is commonly characterized by either the FWHM or the square root of the second moment of the line profile (sigma(line)) and used as an indicator of the virial velocity of the broad-line region (BLR) in the estimation of black hole (BH) mass. We measure FWHM and sigma(line) for H alpha, H beta, and Mg II broad lines in both the mean and rms spectra of a large sample of quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping project. We introduce a new quantitative recipe to measure sigma(line) that is reproducible, is less susceptible to noise and blending in the wings, and scales with the intrinsic width of the line. We compare the four definitions of line width (FWHM and sigma(line) in mean and rms spectra, respectively) for each of the three broad lines and among different lines. There are strong correlations among different width definitions for each line, providing justification for using the line width measured in single-epoch spectroscopy as a virial velocity indicator. There are also strong correlations among different lines, suggesting that alternative lines to H beta can be used to estimate virial BH masses. We further investigate the correlations between virial BH masses using different line width definitions and the stellar velocity dispersion of the host galaxies and the dependence of line shape (characterized by the ratio FWHM/sigma(line)) on physical properties of the quasar. Our results provide further evidence that FWHM is more sensitive to the orientation of a flattened BLR geometry than sigma(line), but the overall comparison between the virial BH mass and host stellar velocity dispersion does not provide conclusive evidence that one particular width definition is significantly better than the others.ISSN
0004-637XVersion
Final published versionSponsors
National Key R&D Program of China [2016YFA0400703]; National Science Foundation of China [11533001, 11721303, 11890693]; Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) through a China-Chile Joint Research Fund [1503]; Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship; NSF [AST-1715579, AST-1517113, AST-1516784]; STFC [ST/R000824/1]; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; National Science Foundation; U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science; University of Arizona; Brazilian Participation Group; Brookhaven National Laboratory; University of Cambridge; Carnegie Mellon University; University of Florida; French Participation Group; German Participation Group; Harvard University; Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias; Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group; Johns Hopkins University; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics; Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics; New Mexico State University; New York University; Ohio State University; Pennsylvania State University; University of Portsmouth; Princeton University; Spanish Participation Group; University of Tokyo; University of Utah; Vanderbilt University; University of Virginia; University of Washington; Yale Universityae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.3847/1538-4357/ab322b