Spectral optical monitoring of a double-peaked emission line AGN Arp 102B: I. Variability of spectral lines and continuum

TL;DR

This long-term optical spectral study of the double-peaked emission line AGN Arp 102B investigates spectral variability, estimates BLR size, and black hole mass, revealing weak line-continuum correlation and periodic flux ratio oscillations.

Contribution

The paper provides the first detailed analysis of spectral line variability and BLR structure in Arp 102B over 23 years, including black hole mass estimation.

Findings

Estimated BLR size with a 20-day lag for Hβ.

Detected periodic oscillation in Hα red-to-blue flux ratio.

Black hole mass estimated at approximately 1.1 x 10^8 solar masses.

Abstract

Here we present results of the long-term (1987-2010) optical spectral monitoring of the broad line radio galaxy Arp 102B, a prototype of active galactic nuclei with the double-peaked broad emission lines, usually assumed to be emitted from an accretion disk. To explore the structure of the broad line region (BLR), we analyze the light curves of the broad H\alpha and H\beta lines and the continuum flux. We aim to estimate the dimensions of the broad-line emitting regions and the mass of the central black hole. We use the CCF to find lags between the lines and continuum variations. We investigate in more details the correlation between line and continuum fluxes, moreover we explore periodical variations of the red-to-blue line flux ratio using Lomb-Scargle periodograms. The line and continuum light curves show several flare-like events. The fluxes in lines and in the continuum are not showing a big change (around 20%) during the monitoring period. We found a small correlation between the line and continuum flux variation, that may indicate that variation in lines has weak connection with the variation of the central photoionization source. In spite of a low line-continuum correlation, using several methods, we estimated a time lag for H\beta around 20 days. The correlation between the H\beta and H\alpha flux variation is significantly higher than between lines and continuum. During the monitoring period, the H\beta and H\alpha lines show double-peaked profiles and we found an indication for a periodical oscillation in the red-to-blue flux ratio of the H\alpha line. The estimated mass of the central black hole is \sim 1.1 \times 10^8 M\odot that is in an agreement with the mass estimated from the M-\sigma* relation.