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BASS. XXV. DR2 Broad-line-based Black Hole Mass Estimates and Biases from Obscuration

Authors :
Julian E. Mejía-Restrepo
Benny Trakhtenbrot
Michael J. Koss
Kyuseok Oh
Jakob den Brok
Daniel Stern
Meredith C. Powell
Federica Ricci
Turgay Caglar
Claudio Ricci
Franz E. Bauer
Ezequiel Treister
Fiona A. Harrison
C. M. Urry
Tonima Tasnim Ananna
Daniel Asmus
Roberto J. Assef
Rudolf E. Bär
Patricia S. Bessiere
Leonard Burtscher
Kohei Ichikawa
Darshan Kakkad
Nikita Kamraj
Richard Mushotzky
George C. Privon
Alejandra F. Rojas
Eleonora Sani
Kevin Schawinski
Sylvain Veilleux
Source :
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol 261, Iss 1, p 5 (2022)
Publication Year :
2022
Publisher :
IOP Publishing, 2022.

Abstract

We present measurements of broad emission lines and virial estimates of supermassive black hole masses ( M _BH ) for a large sample of ultrahard X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) as part of the second data release of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS/DR2). Our catalog includes M _BH estimates for a total of 689 AGNs, determined from the H α , H β , Mg ii λ 2798, and/or C iv λ 1549 broad emission lines. The core sample includes a total of 512 AGNs drawn from the 70 month Swift/BAT all-sky catalog. We also provide measurements for 177 additional AGNs that are drawn from deeper Swift/BAT survey data. We study the links between M _BH estimates and line-of-sight obscuration measured from X-ray spectral analysis. We find that broad H α emission lines in obscured AGNs ( $\mathrm{log}({N}_{{\rm{H}}}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2})\gt 22.0$ ) are on average a factor of ${8.0}_{-2.4}^{+4.1}$ weaker relative to ultrahard X-ray emission and about ${35}_{-12}^{\,+7}$ % narrower than those in unobscured sources (i.e., $\mathrm{log}({N}_{{\rm{H}}}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2})\lt 21.5$ ). This indicates that the innermost part of the broad-line region is preferentially absorbed. Consequently, current single-epoch M _BH prescriptions result in severely underestimated (>1 dex) masses for Type 1.9 sources (AGNs with broad H α but no broad H β ) and/or sources with $\mathrm{log}({N}_{{\rm{H}}}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2})\gtrsim 22.0$ . We provide simple multiplicative corrections for the observed luminosity and width of the broad H α component ( L [bH α ] and FWHM[bH α ]) in such sources to account for this effect and to (partially) remedy M _BH estimates for Type 1.9 objects. As a key ingredient of BASS/DR2, our work provides the community with the data needed to further study powerful AGNs in the low-redshift universe.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
15384365 and 00670049
Volume :
261
Issue :
1
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.fee276ec42034bf29217b4c579110958
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ac6602