1. Quasars and Massive Black Holes Stephen Fine

2. Outline What is a quasar How do we study quasar black holes Why do we study quasar black holes What are the current difficulties in studying black holes How can we improve on the current situation

3. What is a quasar? This is not a quasar

4. What is a quasar? This is not a quasar This is a picture of a quasar This is a spectrum of a quasar

5. Reverberation mapping Broad-line region Continuum source

6. Reverberation mapping results: Line stratification Ionising continuum source Broad Line Region Strong continuum High-ionisation lines C IV, He II … Weaker continuum Low-ionisation lines Hβ, Mg II …

7. Reverberation mapping results: Velocity structure

8. Reverberation mapping results: The r—L relation

9. SMBH mass estimation For a virialised system:

10. SMBH mass estimation Reverberation mapping

11. SMBH mass estimation Without reverberation mapping (single-epoch)

12. SMBH mass estimation: extending to high z Can’t we do any better?

13. Standard reverberation mapping Cross correlate continuum and emission line light curves. Requires 10s to 100s of observational epochs to build up the light curves. Extremely observationally expensive. For brighter objects the situation is worse since they have longer timescales and vary less. To date essentially no reverberation mapping has been performed at z>0.1, M<-24 or with UV lines.

14. Stacked reverberation mapping continuum emission line

15. A first attempt We have repeat spectroscopy from MMT Hectospec of 368 quasars in a Pan-STARRS field that is monitored photometricaly ~weekly 100/75 of these have a good Mg II /C IV line in their spectrum. Is this enough to do some reverberation mapping?

16. First results: Mg II and C IV

17. First results: C IV r-L relation

19. Summary Until recently we have only been able to study the most nearby black holes directly. Through modern instruments and new techniques we are pushing out to the parameter space occupied by the vast majority of known quasars.

20. Obligatory last-slide SKA/MeerKAT reference Time-domain astronomy is just now kicking into gear. Time-resolved surveys are current or coming from the X-ray (e-ROSITA) to UV/optical/NIR (Pan-STARRS, DES, Skymapper, LSST). Transient/variability surveys are major science drivers for MeerKAT, ASKAP and the SKA.

21. MANY THANKS!