Ricci, Federica;
Treister, Ezequiel;
Bauer, Franz E;
Mejia-Restrepo, Julian E;
Koss, Michael J;
den Brok, Jakob S;
Balokovic, Mislav;
... Veilleux, Sylvain; + view all
(2022)
BASS. XXIX. The Near-infrared View of the Broad-line Region (BLR): The Effects of Obscuration in BLR Characterization*.
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
, 261
(1)
, Article 8. 10.3847/1538-4365/ac5b67.
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Abstract
Virial black hole (BH) mass (M BH) determination directly involves knowing the broad-line region (BLR) clouds’ velocity distribution, their distance from the central supermassive BH (R BLR), and the virial factor (f). Understanding whether biases arise in M BH estimation with increasing obscuration is possible only by studying a large (N > 100) statistical sample of obscuration-unbiased (hard) X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the rest-frame near-infrared (0.8–2.5 μm) since it penetrates deeper into the BLR than the optical. We present a detailed analysis of 65 local Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) selected Seyfert galaxies observed with Magellan/FIRE. Adding these to the near-infrared BAT AGN spectroscopic survey database, we study a total of 314 unique near-infrared spectra. While the FWHMs of Hα and near-infrared broad lines (He i, Paβ, Paα) remain unbiased to either BLR extinction or X-ray obscuration, the Hα broad-line luminosity is suppressed when N H ≳ 1021 cm−2, systematically underestimating M BH by 0.23–0.46 dex. Near-infrared line luminosities should be preferred to Hα until N H < 1022 cm−2, while at higher obscuration a less-biased R BLR proxy should be adopted. We estimate f for Seyfert 1 and 2 using two obscuration-unbiased M BH measurements, i.e., the stellar velocity dispersion and a BH mass prescription based on near-infrared and X-ray, and find that the virial factors do not depend on the redshift or obscuration, but some broad lines show a mild anticorrelation with M BH. Our results show the critical impact obscuration can have on BLR characterization and the importance of the near-infrared and X-rays for a less-biased view of the BLR.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | BASS. XXIX. The Near-infrared View of the Broad-line Region (BLR): The Effects of Obscuration in BLR Characterization* |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3847/1538-4365/ac5b67 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ac5b67 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Physical Sciences, Astronomy & Astrophysics, ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI, SUPERMASSIVE BLACK-HOLES, SEYFERT 2 GALAXIES, EMISSION-LINES, TYPE-2 AGN, COLUMN DENSITY, MASS, REVERBERATION, BAT, SPECTROSCOPY |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10153515 |
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