Refining the Radius–Luminosity Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei Misty Bentz The Ohio State University October 19, 2006 Collaborators: Brad Peterson, Kelly Denney, Rick Pogge, Marianne Vestergaard

Talk Outline • Review of Radius—Luminosity Relationship • Host-galaxy starlight images • New BLR radii from reverberation-mapping • Summary and future plans

Radius—Luminosity Relationship Bright, nearby galaxies with faint AGNs and substantial starlight Long lags, some not well constrained - Addition of 17 PG objects allowed real study of relationship by extending L range - Peterson 2004: self-consistent analysis of all monitoring data, cleaned up plot, but still issues Kaspi, S. et al. 2000 ApJ, 533, 631

HST Imaging Program Cycle 12 SNAP Program • 14 objects (12 Seyferts, 2 PG quasars) • ACS HRC camera, F550M filter • set of 3 exposures (120s, 300s, 600s) for each object - F550M – narrow band filter that doesn’t allow emission lines from broad or narrow line region, just continuum flux - Graduated exposures allow correction of saturated nuclear pixels as well as good S/N in outlying galaxy Goal – Measure host galaxy contribution to luminosity

Examples: Aperture Geometry

Examples: Galfit 2-D Image Decompositions fits residuals

Image Decompositions, cont… fits residuals

PSF Subtractions

Revised Radius—Luminosity Relationship Excluded Points: NGC 3516, NGC 7469, IC 4329A: awaiting HST imaging NGC 4051, NGC 3227: significant nuclear structure & reddening PG 2130+099: suspicious lag - PG2130 lag suspicious because it’s an outlier in everything and from unpublished collaborator’s proprietary data - slope of 0.5 consistent with simple photoionization arguments NGC 4151 Bentz, M. C., et al. 2006, ApJ, 644, 133

New Reverberation Mapping Program Spring ’05 Program – Remeasure Hβ Lag Time 6 targets: 2 varied substantially, 1 marginally NGC 4151 τcent = 6.6 +/- 0.9 d σline = 2680 +/- 64 km s-1 MBH = 4.57 +/- 0.52 x 107 M☼ (Bentz, M. C., et al. 2006, ApJ, in press) NGC 4593 τcent = 3.76 +/- 0.76 days σline = 1547 +/- 53 km s-1 MBH = 9.6 +/- 2.0 x 106 M☼ (Denney, K. D., et al. 2006, ApJ, in press) See poster by Kelly Denney

HST Imaging Program #2 Cycle 14 GO Program • 4 Seyferts: NGC3516, NGC4593, NGC7469, and IC4329A • Same observational setup as before • Same techniques employed

New monitoring program Fall ‘06 HST imaging July ‘06 New monitoring program Spring ‘07 HST Cycle 15 Program: ACS HRC imaging of last 17 objects

Implications • R-L relationship holds for 5 orders of magnitude • low luminosity objects have masses ~3x previous estimates • significant outliers can be expected to have physical differences that separate them from the typical population R-L relationship now diagnostic tool