Related papers: Systematic Errors in the Estimation of Black Hole …
Black hole mass is a key factor in determining how a black hole interacts with its environment. However, the determination of black hole masses at high redshifts depends on secondary mass estimators, which are based on empirical…
We present a general method to analyze reverberation mapping data that provides both estimates for the black hole mass and for the geometry and dynamics of the broad line region (BLR) in active galactic nuclei (AGN). Our method directly…
It has been established that virial masses for black holes in low-redshift active galaxies can be estimated from measurements of the optical continuum strength and the width of the broad Hbeta line. Under various circumstances, however,…
We present improved black hole masses for 35 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) based on a complete and consistent reanalysis of broad emission-line reverberation-mapping data. From objects with multiple line measurements, we find that the…
Supermassive black holes reside in the nuclei of most galaxies. Accurately determining their mass is key to understand how the population evolves over time and how the black holes relate to their host galaxies. Beyond the local universe,…
We present a progress report on a project whose goal is to improve both the precision and accuracy of everberation-based black-hole masses. Reverberation masses appear to be accurate to a factor of about three, and the black-hole mass/bulge…
In this paper we apply the reverberation method to determine the mass of the black hole in 3C273 from the Ly a and C iv emission lines using archival IUE observations. Following the standard assumptions of the method, we find a…
We present an improved and expanded simply parameterized phenomenological model of the broad line region (BLR) in active galactic nuclei (AGN) for modeling reverberation mapping data. By modeling reverberation mapping data directly, we can…
We discuss two methods to estimate black hole (BH) masses using X-ray data only: from the X-ray variability amplitude and from the photon index Gamma. The first method is based on the anti-correlation between BH mass and X-ray variability…
The supermassive black hole of M87 is one of the most massive black holes known and has been the subject of several stellar and gas-dynamical mass measurements; however the most recent revision to the stellar-dynamical black hole mass…
We present an analysis of the fundamental plane of black hole accretion, an empirical correlation of the mass of a black hole ($M$), its 5 GHz radio continuum luminosity ($\nu L_{\nu}$), and its 2-10 keV X-ray power-law continuum luminosity…
Accretion of gas onto a central supermassive black hole is generally accepted to be the source of the emitted energy in active galactic nuclei.The broad emission lines we observe in their optical spectra are probably formed in the wind of…
The mass of a supermassive black hole ($M_\mathrm{BH}$) is a fundamental property that can be obtained through observational methods. Constraining $M_\mathrm{BH}$ through multiple methods for an individual galaxy is important for verifying…
We propose a new method for estimating the mass of a supermassive black hole, applicable to obscured AGNs. This method estimates the black hole mass using the width of the narrow core of the neutral FeKa emission line in X-rays and the…
The masses of the central black holes of Active Galactic Nuclei estimated by the reverberation virial technique seem to be significantly smaller than predicted from the black hole mass-bulge luminosity relation for massive black holes…
We propose a new method of estimation of the black hole masses in AGN based on the normalized excess variance, sigma_{nxs}^2. We derive a relation between sigma_{nxs}^2, the length of the observation, T, the light curve bin size, Delta t,…
We analyze the mass distribution of stellar black holes derived from the light and radial velocity curves of optical stars in close binary systems using dynamical methods. The systematic errors inherent in this approach are discussed. These…
We explore possible systematic errors in the mass measurements of stellar mass black holes. We find that significant errors can arise from the assumption of zero or constant emission from the accretion flow, which is commonly used when…
We explore the nature of systematic errors that can arise in measurement of black hole masses from single-epoch spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by utilizing the many epochs available for NGC 5548 and PG1229+204 from reverberation…
The rotational properties of astrophysical black holes are fundamental quantities that characterization the black holes. A new method to empirically determine the spin mass-energy characteristics of astrophysical black holes is presented…