Emission-lines of quasars and similar objects

Astronom

Reverberation Mapping of High-z, High-luminosity Quasars

We present Reverberation Mapping results after monitoring a sample of 17 high-z, high-luminosity quasars for more than 10 years using photometric and spectroscopic capabilities. Continuum and line emission flux variability is observed in all quasars. Using cross-correlation analysis we successfully determine lags between the variations in the continuum and broad emission lines for several sources. Here we present a highlight of our results and the determined radius--luminosity relations for Ly_alpha and CIV.Comment: Contributed talk at conference "Quasars at all cosmic epochs", held in Padova 2-7 April 2017, published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science

Locally Optimally Emitting Clouds and the Origin of Quasar Emission Lines

The similarity of quasar line spectra has been taken as an indication that the emission line clouds have preferred parameters, suggesting that the environment is subject to a fine tuning process. We show here that the observed spectrum is a natural consequence of powerful selection effects. We computed a large grid of photoionization models covering the widest possible range of cloud gas density and distance from the central continuum source. For each line only a narrow range of density and distance from the continuum source results in maximum reprocessing efficiency, corresponding to ``locally optimally-emitting clouds'' (LOC). These parameters depend on the ionization and excitation potentials of the line, and its thermalization density. The mean QSO line spectrum can be reproduced by simply adding together the full family of clouds, with an appropriate covering fraction distribution. The observed quasar spectrum is a natural consequence of the ability of various clouds to reprocess the underlying continuum, and can arise in a chaotic environment with no preferred pressure, gas density, or ionization parameter.Comment: 9 pages including 1 ps figure. LaTeX format using aaspp4.st

Complex Optical-X-ray Correlations in the Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxy NGC 4051

This paper presents the results of a dense and intensive X-ray and optical monitoring of the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4051 carried out in 2000. Results of the optical analysis are consistent with previous measurements. The amplitude of optical emission line variability is a factor of two larger than that of the underlying optical continuum, but part or all of the difference can be due to host-galaxy starlight contamination or due to the lines being driven by the unseen UV continuum, which is more variable than the optical continuum. We measured the lag between optical lines and continuum and found a lower, more accurate broad line region size of 3.0+-1.5 light days in this object. The implied black hole mass is M_BH=5(+6,-3)x10^5 M_sun; this is the lowest mass found, so far, for an active nucleus. We find significant evidence for an X-ray-optical (XO) correlation with a peak lag of about <1 day, although the centroid of the asymmetric correlation function reveals that part of the optical flux varies in advance of the X-ray flux by 2.4+-1.0 days. This complex XO correlation is explained as a possible combination of X-ray reprocessing and perturbations propagating from the outer (optically emitting) parts of the accretion disc into its inner (X-ray emitting) region.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures included, LaTeX mn.sty, accepted for publication in MNRA