TY - JOUR
T1 - The SDSS-V black hole mapper reverberation mapping project
T2 - unusual broad-line variability in a luminous quasar
AU - Fries, L.B.
AU - Trump, J.R.
AU - Davis, M.C.
AU - Grier, C.J.
AU - Shen, Y.
AU - Anderson, S.F.
AU - Dwelly, T.
AU - Eracleous, M.
AU - Homayouni, Y.
AU - Horne, K.
AU - Krumpe, M.
AU - Morrison, S.
AU - Runnoe, J.C.
AU - Trakhtenbrot, B.
AU - Assef, R.J.
AU - Brandt, W.N.
AU - Brownstein, J.
AU - Dabbieri, C.
AU - Fix, A.
AU - Fonseca Alvarez, G.
AU - Frederick, S.
AU - Hall, P.B.
AU - Koekemoer, A.M.
AU - Li, J.I.
AU - Liu, X.
AU - Martínez-Aldama, M.L.
AU - Ricci, C.
AU - Schneider, D.P.
AU - Sharp, H.W.
AU - Temple, M.J.
AU - Yang, Q.
AU - Zeltyn, G.
AU - Bizyaev, D.
N1 - Funding: L.B.F., J.R.T., and M.C.D. acknowledge support from NSF grant CAREER-1945546, and with C.J.G. acknowledge support from NSF grant AST-2108668. J.R.T., C.J.G., and Y.S. also acknowledge support from NSF grant AST-2009539. M.K. acknowledges support by DFG grant KR 3338/4-1. B.T. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement 950533) and from the Israel Science Foundation (grant 1849/19). X.L. acknowledges support from NSF grant AST-2206499. C.R. acknowledges support from the Fondecyt Iniciación grant 11190831 and ANID BASAL project FB210003. R.J.A. acknowledges support by ANID BASAL FB210003 and by FONDECYT grant number 1191124. M.L.M.-A. acknowledges financial support from Millennium Nucleus NCN19058 (TITANs).
PY - 2023/5/1
Y1 - 2023/5/1
N2 - We present a high-cadence multiepoch analysis of dramatic variability of three broad emission lines (Mg ii, Hβ, and Hα) in the spectra of the luminous quasar (λ L λ(5100 Å) = 4.7 × 1044 erg s−1) SDSS J141041.25+531849.0 at z = 0.359 with 127 spectroscopic epochs over nine years of monitoring (2013-2022). We observe anticorrelations between the broad emission-line widths and flux in all three emission lines, indicating that all three broad emission lines “breathe” in response to stochastic continuum variations. We also observe dramatic radial velocity shifts in all three broad emission lines, ranging from Δv ∼ 400 km s−1 to ∼800 km s−1, that vary over the course of the monitoring period. Our preferred explanation for the broad-line variability is complex kinematics in the gas in the broad-line region. We suggest a model for the broad-line variability that includes a combination of gas inflow with a radial gradient, an azimuthal asymmetry (e.g., a hot spot), superimposed on the stochastic flux-driven changes to the optimal emission region (“line breathing”). Similar instances of line-profile variability due to complex gas kinematics around quasars are likely to represent an important source of false positives in radial velocity searches for binary black holes, which typically lack the kind of high-cadence data we analyze here. The long-duration, wide-field, and many-epoch spectroscopic monitoring of SDSS-V BHM-RM provides an excellent opportunity for identifying and characterizing broad emission-line variability, and the inferred nature of the inner gas environment, of luminous quasars.
AB - We present a high-cadence multiepoch analysis of dramatic variability of three broad emission lines (Mg ii, Hβ, and Hα) in the spectra of the luminous quasar (λ L λ(5100 Å) = 4.7 × 1044 erg s−1) SDSS J141041.25+531849.0 at z = 0.359 with 127 spectroscopic epochs over nine years of monitoring (2013-2022). We observe anticorrelations between the broad emission-line widths and flux in all three emission lines, indicating that all three broad emission lines “breathe” in response to stochastic continuum variations. We also observe dramatic radial velocity shifts in all three broad emission lines, ranging from Δv ∼ 400 km s−1 to ∼800 km s−1, that vary over the course of the monitoring period. Our preferred explanation for the broad-line variability is complex kinematics in the gas in the broad-line region. We suggest a model for the broad-line variability that includes a combination of gas inflow with a radial gradient, an azimuthal asymmetry (e.g., a hot spot), superimposed on the stochastic flux-driven changes to the optimal emission region (“line breathing”). Similar instances of line-profile variability due to complex gas kinematics around quasars are likely to represent an important source of false positives in radial velocity searches for binary black holes, which typically lack the kind of high-cadence data we analyze here. The long-duration, wide-field, and many-epoch spectroscopic monitoring of SDSS-V BHM-RM provides an excellent opportunity for identifying and characterizing broad emission-line variability, and the inferred nature of the inner gas environment, of luminous quasars.
U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/acbfb7
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/acbfb7
M3 - Article
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 948
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 1
M1 - 5
ER -