Optical continuum photometric reverberation mapping of the Seyfert-1 galaxy Mrk509

TL;DR

This study used high-precision optical photometric reverberation mapping over two years to measure continuum delays in Mrk509, revealing a larger disk size than standard models predict, consistent with an accretion disk theory.

Contribution

First high-accuracy, multi-band optical reverberation mapping of Mrk509 using narrow-band filters to measure continuum delays and test accretion disk models.

Findings

Measured continuum time delays up to 2 days.

Disk size is 1.8 times larger than standard predictions.

Time delays follow the $ au \,\propto \,\lambda^{4/3}$ relation.

Abstract

We present the results of a two year optical continuum photometric reverberation mapping campaign carried out on the nucleus of the Seyfert-1 galaxy Mrk509. Specially designed narrow-band filters were used in order to mitigate the line and pseudo-continuum contamination of the signal from the broad line region, while allowing for high-accuracy flux-calibration over a large field of view. We obtained light curves with a sub-day time sampling and typical flux uncertainties of $1\%$. The high photometric precision allowed us to measure inter-band continuum time delays of up to $\sim 2$ days across the optical range. The time delays are consistent with the relation $\tau \propto \lambda^{4/3}$ predicted for an optically thick and geometrically thin accretion disk model. The size of the disk is, however, a factor of 1.8 larger than predictions based on the standard thin-disk theory. We argue that, for the particular case of Mrk509, a larger black hole mass due to the unknown geometry scaling factor can reconcile the difference between the observations and theory.