The blazar S5 0014+813: a real or apparent monster?
Abstract
A strong hard X-ray luminosity from a blazar flags the presence of a very powerful jet. If the jet power is in turn related to the mass accretion rate, the most luminous hard X-ray blazars should pinpoint the largest accretion rates, and therefore the largest black hole masses. These ideas are confirmed by the Swift satellite observations of the blazar S5 0014+813, at the redshift z=3.366. Swift detected this source with all its three instruments, from the optical to the hard X-rays. Through the construction of its spectral energy distribution we are confident that its optical-UV emission is thermal in origin. Associating it to the emission of a standard optically thick geometrically thin accretion disk, we find a black hole mass of 40 billion solar masses, radiating at 40% the Eddington value. The derived mass is among the largest ever found. Super-Eddington slim disks or thick disks with the presence of a collimating funnel can in principle reduce the black hole mass estimate, but tends to produce spectra bluer than observed.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0906.0575,
title = {The blazar S5 0014+813: a real or apparent monster?},
author = {G. Ghisellini and L. Foschini and M. Volonteri and G. Ghirlanda and F. Haardt and D. Burlon and F. Tavecchio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0906.0575},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication as a letter in MNRAS after minor revision