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Related papers: Systematic Uncertainties in Black Hole Masses Dete…

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The masses of supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGN) can be derived spectroscopically via virial mass estimators based on selected broad optical/ultraviolet emission lines. These estimates commonly use the line width as a…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-09-09 Sascha Trippe

In the era of massive photometric surveys, we explore several approaches to estimate the masses of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGN) from optical ground-based imaging, in each case comparing to the independent…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-09-02 Sarah Casura , Dragana Ilić , Jonathan Targaczewski , Nemanja Rakić , Jochen Liske

Reverberation mapping (RM) determines the mass of black holes (BH) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by resolving the BH gravitational sphere of influence in the time domain. Recent RM campaigns yielded direct BH masses through dynamical…

Line broadening and variability are observational hallmarks of active galactic nuclei which allow us to measure supermassive black hole masses as well as constrain the geometry and kinematics of the emitting gas, with the most precise…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-07-14 Kirk Long , Jason Dexter

We report the first results of a program to measure accurate stellar velocity dispersions in the bulges of the host galaxies of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) for which accurate black hole (BH) masses have been determined via reverberation…

The variability of submillimeter emission provides a useful tool to probe the accretion physics in low-luminosity active galactic nuclei. We accumulate four years of observations using Submillimeter Array for Centaurus A, NGC 4374, NGC…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-07-12 Bo-Yan Chen , Geoffrey C. Bower , Jason Dexter , Sera Markoff , Anthony Ridenour , Mark A. Gurwell , Ramprasad Rao , Sofia H. J. Wallström

We selected a sample of 28 Type 1 AGNs for which a black hole mass has been inferred using the reverberation mapping technique and single epoch scaling relations. All 28 sources show clear evidence of the "Big Blue Bump" in the optical-UV…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-08-19 Samuele Campitiello , Annalisa Celotti , Gabriele Ghisellini , Tullia Sbarrato

We explore the practical feasibility of AGN broad-band reverberation mapping and present first results. We lay out and apply a rigorous approach for stochastic reverberation mapping of unevenly sampled multi-broad-band flux measurements,…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-23 Nina Hernitschek , Hans-Walter Rix , Jo Bovy , Eric Morganson

Our objective is to critically assess the X-ray flux variability as a tool for measuring the black hole (BH) mass in active galactic nuclei (AGN). We aim to establish a prescription for estimating BH masses based on measurements of the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-10-19 A. Akylas , I. Papadakis , A. Georgakakis

Black hole mass is a fundamental property of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). In the distant universe, black hole mass is commonly estimated using the MgII, Hbeta, or Halpha emission line widths and the optical/UV continuum or line…

Astrophysics · Physics 2011-03-28 Kathryn L. McGill , Jong-Hak Woo , Tommaso Treu , Matthew A. Malkan

The innermost regions in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) were not being spatially resolved so far but spectropolarimetry can provide us insight about their hidden physics and the geometry. From spectropolarimetric observations in broad…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-07-04 Đ. Savić , R. Goosmann , L. Č. Popović , F. Marin , V. L. Afanasiev

A new empirical formulae is given for estimating the masses of black holes in AGNs from the H beta velocity dispersion and the continuum luminosity at 5100 Angstroms. It is calibrated to reverberation-mapping and stellar-dynamical estimates…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-18 C. Martin Gaskell

We present the final results from a high sampling rate, multi-month, spectrophotometric reverberation mapping campaign undertaken to obtain either new or improved Hbeta reverberation lag measurements for several relatively low-luminosity…

The AGN Black Hole Mass Database is a compilation of all published spectroscopic reverberation-mapping studies of active galaxies. We have created a public web interface, where users may get the most up-to-date black hole masses from…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-23 Misty C. Bentz , Sarah Katz

We present the single-epoch black hole mass (M$_{\rm BH}$) calibrations based on the rest-frame UV and optical measurements of Mg II 2798\AA\ and H$\beta$ 4861\AA\ lines and AGN continuum, using a sample of 52 moderate-luminosity AGNs at…

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…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 M. Vestergaard , B. M. Peterson

We describe the general problem of estimating black hole masses of AGN by calculating the conditional probability distribution of M_BH given some set of observables. Special attention is given to the case where one uses the AGN continuum…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-11 Brandon C. Kelly , Jill Bechtold

We present measurements of broad emission lines and virial estimates of supermassive black hole masses ($M_{BH}$) for a large sample of ultra-hard X-ray selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) as part of the second data release of the BAT…

We provide an updated calibration of CIV $\lambda1549$ broad emission line-based single-epoch (SE) black hole (BH) mass estimators for active galactic nuclei (AGNs) using new data for six reverberation-mapped AGNs at redshift…

We test a novel method for estimating black hole masses ($M_{\rm BH}$) in obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) that uses proxies to measure the full-width half maximum of broad H$\alpha$ (FWHM$_{\rm bH\alpha}$) and the accretion disk…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-01-27 S. LaMassa , I. Farrow , C. M. Urry , B. Trakhtenbrot , C. Auge , M. J. Koss , A. Peca , D. Sanders , T. J. Turner