The Mass of the Central Black Hole in the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 3783

Onken, Christopher A.; Peterson, B. M.

doi:10.1086/340351

Cited by 141 publications

(164 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(52 reference statements)

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“…Relative to lower ionization lines, higher ionization lines are both broader and closer to the central source, consistent with 16 B. M. Peterson ionization stratification of the BLR and dynamics that are dominated by a central mass Onken & Peterson 2002;Kollatschny 2003).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Black hole masses from reverberation measurements

Peterson¹

2004

Proc. IAU

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Abstract.We have reanalyzed in a consistent way existing reverberation data for 35 AGNs for the purpose of refining the black hole masses derived from these data. We find that the precision (or random component of the error) of reverberation-based black hole mass measurements is typically around 30%, comparable to the precision attained in measurement of black hole masses in quiescent galaxies by gas or stellar dynamical methods. As discussed in this volume by Onken et al., we have established an absolute calibration for AGN reverberation-based masses by assuming that AGNs and quiescent galaxies follow an identical relationship between black hole mass and host-galaxy bulge velocity dispersion. The scatter around this relationship implies that the typical systematic uncertainties in reverberation-based black hole masses are smaller than a factor of three. We present a preliminary version of a mass-luminosity relationship that is much better defined than any previous attempt. Scatter about the mass-luminosity relationship for these AGNs appears to be real and could be correlated with either Eddington ratio or source inclination.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Black hole masses from reverberation measurements

Peterson¹

2004

Proc. IAU

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“…Indeed, the most compelling reason to have some confidence in the C iv-based mass estimates is because in the handful of objects in which reverberation results are available for multiple emission lines, the virial products are consistent for all of the measured emission lines, including C iv Onken & Peterson 2002).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determining Central Black Hole Masses in Distant Active Galaxies and Quasars. II. Improved Optical and UV Scaling Relationships

Vestergaard

Peterson

2006

ApJ

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We present four improved empirical relationships useful for estimating the central black hole mass in nearby AGNs and distant luminous quasars alike using either optical or UV single-epoch spectroscopy. These mass scaling relationships between line widths and luminosity are based on recently improved empirical relationships between the broad-line region size and luminosities in various energy bands and are calibrated to the improved mass measurements of nearby AGNs based on emission-line reverberation mapping. The mass scaling relationship based on the H line luminosity allows mass estimates for low-redshift sources with strong contamination of the optical continuum luminosity by stellar or nonthermal emission, while that based on the C iv k1549 line dispersion allows mass estimates in cases where only the line dispersion (as opposed to the FWHM) can be reliably determined. We estimate that the absolute uncertainties in masses given by these mass scaling relationships are typically around a factor of 4. We include in an appendix mass estimates for all of the Bright Quasar Survey (PG) quasars for which direct reverberationbased mass measurements are not available.

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“…Applying the BCES method of Akritas & Bershady (1996) on the K00 data and using a modified BLR size for NGC 4051 from Peterson et al (2000), she found R BLR ∼ L 0.58±0.09 , perfectly compatible with L 0.5 . We can refine this relationship by using the new R BLR for 3C 273 found in this work and by including new measurements for NGC 3783 (Onken & Peterson 2002), and NGC 3227 (Onken et al 2003). 3C 273 has an important weight in the relationship, because it is the highest-luminosity object in the sample.…”

Section: Size Of the Broad-line Regionmentioning

confidence: 91%

The mass of the black hole in 3C 273

Paltani¹,

Türler

2005

A&A

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Abstract. In this paper we apply the reverberation method to determine the mass of the black hole in 3C 273 from the Lyα and C emission lines using archival IUE observations. Following the standard assumptions of the method, we find a maximumlikelihood estimate of the mass of 6.59 × 10 9 M , with a 1σ confidence interval 5.69−8.27 × 10 9 M . This estimate is more than one order of magnitude larger than that obtained in a previous study using Balmer lines. We reanalyze the optical data and show that the method applied to the Hα, Hβ, and Hγ Balmer lines produce mass estimates lower by a factor 2.5, but already much larger than the previous estimate derived from the same lines. The finding of such a high mass in a face-on object is a strong indication that the gas motion is not confined to the accretion disk. The new mass estimate makes 3C 273 accreting with an accretion rate about six times lower than the Eddington rate. We discuss the implications of our result for the broad-line-region size and black-hole mass vs. luminosity relationships for the set of objects for which reverberation black-hole masses have been obtained. We find that, while objects with super-Eddington luminosities might theoretically be possible, their existence is not necessarily implied by this sample.

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The Mass of the Central Black Hole in the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 3783

Cited by 141 publications

References 32 publications

Black hole masses from reverberation measurements

Black hole masses from reverberation measurements

Determining Central Black Hole Masses in Distant Active Galaxies and Quasars. II. Improved Optical and UV Scaling Relationships

The mass of the black hole in 3C 273

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