Calibrating Mg II-based black-hole mass estimators using Low-to-High-Luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei

TL;DR

This study calibrates ultraviolet Mg II-based black hole mass estimators across a wide luminosity range of active galactic nuclei, addressing systematic discrepancies and improving estimation accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a correction term for Mg II mass estimators and assesses biases, enhancing the reliability of UV-based black hole mass measurements.

Findings

Significant effects of Mg II and Hβ line profile differences on mass calibration.

A correction term improves UV mass estimator accuracy.

Identified a 0.1 dex bias due to spectral slope variations.

Abstract

We present single-epoch black-hole mass (\mbh) estimators based on the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) \MgII\ 2798\AA\ and optical \Hb\ 4861\AA\ emission lines. To enlarge the luminosity range of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), we combine the 31 reverberation-mapped AGNs with relatively low luminosities from Bahk et al. 2019, 47 moderate-luminosity AGNs from Woo et al. 2018, and 425 high-luminosity AGNs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The combined sample has the monochromatic luminosity at 5100\AA\ ranging $\mathrm{\log \lambda L_{5100} \sim 41.3-46.5}$ \ergs, over the range of 5.5 $<$ $\log$\mbh\ $<$ 9.5. Based on the fiducial mass from the line dispersion or full width half maximum (FWHM) of \Hb\ paired with continuum luminosity at 5100\AA, we calibrate the best-fit parameters in the black hole mass estimators using the \MgII\ line. We find that the differences in the line profiles between \MgII\ and \Hb\ have significant effects on calibrating the UV \mbh\ estimators. By exploring the systematic discrepancy between the UV and optical \mbh\ estimators as a function of AGN properties, we suggest to add correction term $\Delta$M = -1.14 $\rm \log(FWHM_{MgII}/\sigma_{MgII}$) + 0.33 in the UV mass estimator equation. We also find a $\sim$0.1 dex bias in the \mbh\ estimation due to the difference of the spectral slope in the 2800-5200 \AA\ range. Depending on the selection of \mbh\ estimator based on either line dispersion or FWHM and either continuum or line luminosity, the derived UV mass estimators show >~0.1 dex intrinsic scatter with respect to the fiducial \Hb\ based \mbh.