Black Hole Mass Estimates from Reverberation Mapping and from Spatially Resolved Kinematics

Gebhardt, Karl; Kormendy, John; Ho, Luis C.; Bender, Ralf; Bower, Gary; Dressler, Alan; Faber, S. M.; Filippenko, A. V.; Green, Richard; Grillmair, Carl J.; Lauer, Tod R.; Magorrian, John; Pinkney, Jason; Richstone, D. O.; Tremaine, Scott

doi:10.1086/318174

Cited by 424 publications

(215 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Kaspi et al 2000;Grier et al 2012), or the correlation between black hole mass and host galaxy bulge stellar velocity dispersion (e.g. Gebhardt et al 2000). 12 The observed scaling is flatter than expected from a linear relationship, but this can be explained as a bias due to the fact that we only sample the higher frequency end of the soft lag range in the highest mass objects, which leads to systematically shorter lags than would be seen if we could sample the maximum amplitude of soft lags seen at lower frequencies (De Marco et al 2013).…”

Section: The Iron K Lagmentioning

confidence: 99%

X-ray reverberation around accreting black holes

Uttley

Cackett

Fabian³

et al. 2014

Astron Astrophys Rev

438

606

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Luminous accreting stellar mass and supermassive black holes produce power-law continuum X-ray emission from a compact central corona. Reverberation time lags occur due to light travel time-delays between changes in the direct coronal emission and corresponding variations in its reflection from the accretion flow. Reverberation is detectable using light curves made in different X-ray energy bands, since the direct and reflected components have different spectral shapes. Larger, lower frequency, lags are also seen and are identified with propagation of fluctuations through the accretion flow and associated corona. We review the evidence for X-ray reverberation in active galactic nuclei and black hole X-ray binaries, showing how it can be best measured and how it may be modelled. The timescales and energy-dependence of the high frequency reverberation lags show that much of the signal is originating from very close to the black hole in some objects, within a few gravitational radii of the event horizon. We consider how these signals can be studied in the future to carry out X-ray reverberation mapping of the regions closest to black holes.

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Section: The Iron K Lagmentioning

confidence: 99%

X-ray reverberation around accreting black holes

Uttley

Cackett

Fabian³

et al. 2014

Astron Astrophys Rev

438

606

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“…Whenever they were available, we used the M BH estimates based on the established correlations of the black hole mass with the host galaxy properties (Kormendy & Richstone 1995;Magorrian et al 1998;Gebhardt et al 2000a;Ferrarese & Merritt 2000;Wandel 2002;Marconi & Hunt 2003). In addition, we also used the estimators calibrated from reverberation mapping technique (Gebhardt et al 2000b;Kaspi et al 2000;Vestergaard & Peterson 2006) and, in some cases, the estimates based on spectral energy distribution (SED) modelling (Ghisellini et al 2010). In cases where more than one estimate was found, we adopted the most direct one or the one based on the relation with the least intrinsic scatter.…”

Section: Smbh Masses and Corresponding Time Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minimal variability time scale – central black hole mass relation of theγ-ray loud blazars

Vovk

Babić

2015

A&A

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Context. The variability time scales of the blazar γ-ray emission contain the imprints of the sizes of their emission zones and are generally expected to be larger than the light-crossing times of these zones. In several cases the time scales were found to be as short ∼10 min, suggesting that the emission zone sizes are comparable with the sizes of the central supermassive black holes. Previously, these measurements also led to the suggestion of a possible connection between the observed minimal variability time scales and the masses of the corresponding black holes. This connection can be used to determine the location of the γ-ray emission site, which currently remains uncertain. Aims. The study aims to investigate the suggested "minimum time scale -black hole mass" relation using the blazars, detected in the TeV band. Methods. To obtain the tightest constraints on the variability time scales this work uses a compilation of observations by the Cherenkov telescopes HESS, MAGIC, and VERITAS. These measurements are compared to the blazar central black hole masses found in the literature.Results. The majority of the studied blazars show the variability time scales which are at least comparable to the period of rotation along the last stable orbit of the central black hole -and in some cases as short as its light-crossing time. For several sources the observed variability time scales are found to be smaller than the black hole light-crossing time. This suggests that the detected γ-ray variability originates, most probably, from the turbulence in the jet, sufficiently far from the central black hole.

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“…330-458), but there is still much that we do not understand about these exotic objects. The combination of electromagnetic observations with future detections of gravitational-wave (GW) signals will provide key insights into the nature of compact objects and the role they play in some of the most energetic events in the universe: gamma-ray bursts, active galactic nuclei, quasars, etc. (Soltan 1982;Kormendy & Richstone 1995;Magorrian et al 1998;Janka et al 1999;Gebhardt et al 2000;Hughes & Blandford 2003;Peterson et al 2004;Lee & Ramirez-Ruiz 2007;Hughes 2009;Metzger & Berger 2012;Berger 2013;Berger et al 2013;Piran et al 2013;Tanvir et al 2013). Several large-scale collaborations are working to inaugurate the new field of GW astronomy by targeting a wide variety of potential GW sources.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting Eccentric Supermassive Black Hole Binaries With Pulsar Timing Arrays: Resolvable Source Strategies

Taylor

Huerta

Gair

et al. 2016

ApJ

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The couplings between supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) and their environments within galactic nuclei have been well studied as part of the search for solutions to the final parsec problem. The scattering of stars by the binary or the interaction with a circumbinary disk may efficiently drive the system to sub-parsec separations, allowing the binary to enter a regime where the emission of gravitational waves can drive it to merger within a Hubble time. However, these interactions can also affect the orbital parameters of the binary. In particular, they may drive an increase in binary eccentricity which survives until the system's gravitational-wave (GW) signal enters the pulsar-timing array (PTA) band. Therefore, if we can measure the eccentricity from observed signals, we can potentially deduce some of the properties of the binary environment. To this end, we build on previous techniques to present a general Bayesian pipeline with which we can detect and estimate the parameters of an eccentric SMBHB system with PTAs. Additionally, we generalize the PTA  e -statistic to eccentric systems, and show that both this statistic and the Bayesian pipeline are robust when studying circular or arbitrarily eccentric systems. We explore how eccentricity influences the detection prospects of single GW sources, as well as the detection penalty incurred by employing a circular waveform template to search for eccentric signals, and conclude by identifying important avenues for future study.

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Black Hole Mass Estimates from Reverberation Mapping and from Spatially Resolved Kinematics

Cited by 424 publications

References 35 publications

X-ray reverberation around accreting black holes

X-ray reverberation around accreting black holes

Minimal variability time scale – central black hole mass relation of theγ-ray loud blazars

Detecting Eccentric Supermassive Black Hole Binaries With Pulsar Timing Arrays: Resolvable Source Strategies

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