Are NLS1s highly accreting low black hole mass AGNs?

TL;DR

This study compares black hole masses and accretion rates of NLS1s and BLS1s, finding NLS1s generally have lower masses and higher accretion rates, supporting the idea they are younger active galactic nuclei.

Contribution

It introduces an X-ray scaling method for black hole mass estimation and compares NLS1s and BLS1s using this technique and statistical tests.

Findings

NLS1s have lower black hole masses than BLS1s, but with marginal significance.

NLS1s show higher accretion rates compared to BLS1s.

Black hole mass estimates are consistent with reverberation mapping results.

Abstract

In this work, we test the hypothesis that narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NSL1s) are active galactic nuclei in their early phase and are therefore younger and more active than the more common broad-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (BLS1s). If that is true, then NLS1s should, on average, have lower black hole masses and higher accretion rates than BLS1s. To test this, we use a sample of 35 NLS1s and 54 BLS1s with similar X-ray luminosity distributions and good XMM-Newton observations. To determine the black hole mass, we apply an X-ray scaling method that is independent of any assumptions on the broad-line region dynamics and the inclination of the objects. We find that, on average, NLS1s have lower black hole masses, but the difference between the average black hole masses of NLS1s and BLS1s in our sample is only marginally significant (at the 2.6 sigma level). According to a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the distribution of black hole mass values of NLS1s is different from that of BLS1s at the 99% confidence level. Even stronger differences between NLS1s and BLS1s are inferred when the accretion rate distributions of NLS1s are compared to BLS1s, suggesting that the two populations are indeed distinct. Our study also indicates that the black hole mass values (both for NLS1s and BLS1s) determined with the X-ray scaling method are fully consistent with those obtained using reverberation mapping.