The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Key Results

We present the final data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project, a precursor to the SDSS-V Black Hole Mapper Reverberation Mapping program. This data set includes 11-year photometric and 7-year spectroscopic light curves for 849 broad-line quasars over a redshift range of 0.1<z<4.5 and a luminosity range of Lbol=1E44-47.5 erg/s, along with spectral and variability measurements. We report 23, 81, 125, and 110 reverberation mapping lags (relative to optical continuum variability) for broad Halpha, Hbeta, MgII and CIV using the SDSS-RM sample, spanning much of the luminosity and redshift ranges of the sample. Using 30 low-redshift RM AGNs with dynamical-modeling black hole masses, we derive a new estimate of the average virial factor of <log f>=0.62+-0.07 for the line dispersion measured from the RMS spectrum. The intrinsic scatter of individual virial factors is 0.31+-0.07 dex, indicating a factor of two systematic uncertainty in RM black hole masses. Our lag measurements reveal significant R-L relations for Hbeta and MgII at high redshift, consistent with the latest measurements based on heterogeneous samples. While we are unable to robustly constrain the slope of the R-L relation for CIV given the limited dynamical range in luminosity, we found substantially larger scatter in CIV lags at fixed L1350. Using the SDSS-RM lag sample, we derive improved single-epoch (SE) mass recipes for Hbeta, MgII and CIV, which are consistent with their respective RM masses as well as between the SE recipes from two different lines, over the luminosity range probed by our sample. The new Hbeta and MgII recipes are approximately unbiased estimators at given RM masses, but there are systematic biases in the CIV recipe. The intrinsic scatter of SE masses around RM masses is ~0.45 dex for Hbeta and MgII, increasing to ~0.58 dex for CIV.
Comment: Replaced with accepted version (ApJS in press). All measurements remain unchanged from the previous version. 38 pages. Data products available at https://ariel.astro.illinois.edu/sdssrm/final result/ and ftp://quasar.astro.illinois.edu/public/sdssrm/final_result/