Diverse Broad Line Region Kinematic Signatures From Reverberation Mapping

TL;DR

This study uses high-cadence reverberation mapping to reveal diverse kinematic behaviors in the broad line regions of several AGNs, including outflow, infall, and virialized motions, enhancing understanding of AGN dynamics.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed velocity-resolved reverberation signals for multiple AGNs, demonstrating varied BLR kinematics beyond simple models.

Findings

Detection of outflowing, infalling, and virialized BLR gas motions.

Unambiguous velocity-resolved reverberation signals obtained.

Enhanced understanding of AGN broad line region dynamics.

Abstract

A detailed analysis of the data from a high sampling rate, multi-month reverberation mapping campaign, undertaken primarily at MDM Observatory with supporting observations from telescopes around the world, reveals that the Hbeta emission region within the broad line regions (BLRs) of several nearby AGNs exhibit a variety of kinematic behaviors. While the primary goal of this campaign was to obtain either new or improved Hbeta reverberation lag measurements for several relatively low luminosity AGNs (presented in a separate work), we were also able to unambiguously reconstruct velocity-resolved reverberation signals from a subset of our targets. Through high cadence spectroscopic monitoring of the optical continuum and broad Hbeta emission line variations observed in the nuclear regions of NGC 3227, NGC 3516, and NGC 5548, we clearly see evidence for outflowing, infalling, and virialized BLR gas motions, respectively.