Spectroastrometry and Reverberation Mapping (SARM) of Active Galactic Nuclei. I. The H$\beta$ Broad-line Region Structure and Black Hole Mass of Five Quasars

TL;DR

This study uses reverberation mapping and spectroastrometry to analyze the broad-line region and estimate black hole masses in five active galactic nuclei, providing new spectroscopic data and insights into BLR kinematics.

Contribution

First spectroscopic monitoring of five quasars' broad-line regions, including two new objects, with multi-year data enabling detailed BLR and black hole mass analysis.

Findings

Detected significant Hβ time lags consistent with BLR size-luminosity relation.

Observed diverse, possibly evolving BLR kinematics from velocity-resolved lags.

Estimated black hole masses with good consistency across seasons and methods.

Abstract

We conduct a reverberation mapping (RM) campaign to spectroscopically monitor a sample of selected bright active galactic nuclei with large anticipated broad-line region (BLR) sizes adequate for spectroastrometric observations by the GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. We report the first results for five objects, IC 4329A, Mrk 335, Mrk 509, Mrk 1239, and PDS 456, among which Mrk 1239 and PDS 456 are for the first time spectroscopically monitored. We obtain multi-year monitoring data and perform multi-component spectral decomposition to extract the broad H$\beta$ profiles. We detect significant time lags between the H$\beta$ and continuum variations, generally obeying the previously established BLR size-luminosity relation. Velocity-resolved H$\beta$ time lags illustrate diverse, possibly evolving BLR kinematics. We further measure the H$\beta$ line widths from mean and rms spectra and the resulting virial products show good consistency among different seasons. Adopting a unity virial factor and the full width at half maximum of the broad H$\beta$ line from the mean spectrum as the measure of velocity, the obtained black hole mass averaged over seasons is $\log M_\bullet/M_\odot=8.02_{-0.14}^{+0.09}$, $6.92_{-0.12}^{+0.12}$, $8.01_{-0.25}^{+0.16}$, $7.44_{-0.14}^{+0.13}$, and $8.59_{-0.11}^{+0.07}$ for the five objects, respectively. The black hole mass estimations using other line width measures are also reported (up to the virial factors). For objects with previous RM campaigns, our mass estimates are in agreement with earlier results. In a companion paper, we will employ BLR dynamical modeling to directly infer the black hole mass and thereby determine the virial factors.