Accretion Disk Reverberation Mapping of Active Galactic Nuclei at Wise Observatory

TL;DR

This paper presents an automated photometric monitoring method for active galactic nuclei using a small telescope with narrow-band filters, enabling high-precision reverberation mapping of accretion disks up to z ~ 0.1.

Contribution

It introduces a new automated observational setup and demonstrates its effectiveness through initial data on Mrk 279, achieving precise time-delay measurements.

Findings

Successful measurement of inter-band time delays up to ~2 days

High-fidelity photometry with 1% flux uncertainty

Effective monitoring over two months with sub-diurnal sampling

Abstract

We have started automatized photometric monitoring of active galactic nuclei using the 46 cm telescope of the Wise Observatory in Israel. The telescope is specially equipped with narrow-band filters to perform high-fidelity photometric reverberation mapping of the accretion disk in V < 17 mag sources up to z ~ 0.1. Here, we describe the capability and accuracy of the experiment, and present the first science verification data obtained for the Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 279. With sub-diurnal sampling over more than two months, and typical flux measurement uncertainties of $1\%$, we are able to measure inter-band time-delays of up to ~2 days across the optical range.