SALT long-slit spectroscopy of CTS C30.10: two-component Mg II line

TL;DR

This study uses SALT long-slit spectroscopy to analyze the Mg II emission line in quasar CTS C30.10, revealing a two-component structure and variability patterns important for cosmological measurements and black hole mass estimation.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the two-component Mg II line structure and variability in a quasar at intermediate redshift, informing cosmological applications.

Findings

Mg II line consists of two kinematic Lorentzian components.

Both components show similar variability patterns.

Fe II pseudo-continuum is mainly related to the blue Mg II component.

Abstract

Quasars can be used as a complementary tool to SN Ia to probe the distribution of dark energy in the Universe by measuring the time delay of the emission line with respect to the continuum. The understanding of the Mg II emission line structure is important for cosmological application and for the black hole mass measurements of intermediate redshift quasars. The knowledge of the shape of Mg II line and its variability allows to determine which part of the line should be used to measure the time delay and the black hole mass. We thus aim at determination of the structure and the variability of the Mg II line as well as of the underlying Fe II pseudo-continuum. We performed five spectroscopic observations of a quasar CTS C30.10 (z = 0.9000) with the SALT telescope between December 2012 and March 2014, and we studied the variations of the spectral shape in the 2700 - 2900 A rest frame. We showed that the Mg II line in this source consists of two kinematic components, which makes the source representative of type B quasars. Both components were well modeled with a Lorentzian shape. Both components vary in a similar way. The Fe II contribution seems to be related only to the first (blue) Mg II component}. Broad band spectral fitting rather favor the use of the whole line profile. The contribution of the Narrow Line Region to Mg II is very low, below 2%. The Mg II variability is lower than the variability of the continuum, which is consistent with the simple reprocessing scenario. The variability level of CTS C30.10 and the measurement accuracy of the line and continuum is high enough to expect that further monitoring will allow to measure the time delay between the Mg II line and continuum.