Individual Estimates of the Virial Factor in 10 Quasars: Implications on the Kinematics of the Broad-line Region

Assuming a gravitational origin for the Fe iiiλλ2039-2113 redshift and using microlensing based estimates of the size of the region emitting this feature, we obtain individual measurements of the virial factor, f, in 10 quasars. The average values for the Balmer lines, and , are in good agreement wi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2020-06, Vol.895 (2), p.111
Main Authors: Mediavilla, E., Jiménez-vicente, J., Mejía-restrepo, J., Motta, V., Falco, E., Muñoz, J. A., Fian, C., Guerras, E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accretion
Accretion disks
Active galaxies
Astrophysics
Balmer lines
Histograms
Kinematics
Microlenses
Quasars
Red shift
Supermassive black holes
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Summary:Assuming a gravitational origin for the Fe iiiλλ2039-2113 redshift and using microlensing based estimates of the size of the region emitting this feature, we obtain individual measurements of the virial factor, f, in 10 quasars. The average values for the Balmer lines, and , are in good agreement with the results of previous studies for objects with lines of comparable widths. In the case of Mg ii, consistent results, , can be also obtained accepting a reasonable scaling for the size of the emitting region. The modeling of the cumulative histograms of individual measurements, CDF(f), indicates a relatively high value for the ratio between isotropic and cylindrical motions, . On the contrary, we find very large values of the virial factor associated to the Fe iiiλλ2039-2113 blend, , which can be explained if this feature arises from a flattened nearly face-on structure, similar to the accretion disk.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/ab8ae0