1. Modelling the UV/optical continuum time-lags in AGN
- Author
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Michal Dovciak, E. Kammoun, I. E. Papadakis, Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie (IRAP), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP), Météo France-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Météo France-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), and Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France -Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France -Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Subjects
NGC 5548 ,Active galactic nucleus ,Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Continuum (design consultancy) ,galaxies: active ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Astrophysics ,NGC 2617 ,01 natural sciences ,Spectral line ,accretion ,0103 physical sciences ,010303 astronomy & astrophysics ,High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) ,Physics ,X-rays: individual: Mrk 142 ,Accretion (meteorology) ,010308 nuclear & particles physics ,Astronomy and Astrophysics ,Corona ,accretion discs ,galaxies: Seyfert ,Black hole ,Wavelength ,Space and Planetary Science ,NGC 4593 ,NGC 4151 ,NGC 7469 ,Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Mrk 509 ,[PHYS.ASTR]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph] ,Analytic function - Abstract
Thermal reverberation in accretion discs of active galactic nuclei is thought to be the reason of the continuum UV/optical time lags seen in these sources. Recently, we studied thermal reverberation of a standard Novikov-Thorne accretion disc illuminated by an X-ray point-like source, and we derived an analytic prescription for the time lags as function of wavelength. In this work, we use this analytic function to fit the time-lags spectra of seven Seyferts, that have been intensively monitored, in many wave-bands, in the last few years. We find that thermal reverberation can explain the observed UV/optical time lags in all these sources. Contrary to previous claims, the magnitude of the observed UV/optical time-lags is exactly as expected in the case of a standard accretion disc in the lamp-post geometry, given the black hole mass and the accretion rate estimates for the objects we study. We derive estimates of the disc accretion rates and corona height for a non-spinning and a maximally spinning black hole scenarios. We also find that the modelling of the continuum optical/UV time-lags can be used to estimate the black hole spin, when combined with additional information. We also find that the model under-predicts the observed X-ray to UV time-lags, but this difference is probably due to the broad X-ray auto-correlation function of these sources., Accepted for publication in MNRAS
- Published
- 2021
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