Reverberation measurements of the inner radius of the dust torus in 17 seyfert galaxies

Shintaro Koshida, Takeo Minezaki, Yuzuru Yoshii, Yukiyasu Kobayashi, Yu Sakata, Shota Sugawara, Keigo Enya, Masahiro Suganuma, Hiroyuki Tomita, Tsutomu Aoki, Bruce A. Peterson

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    187 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We present the results of a dust reverberation survey for 17 nearby Seyfert 1 galaxies, which provides the largest homogeneous data collection for the radius of the innermost dust torus. A delayed response of the K-band light curve after the V-band light curve was found for all targets, and 49 measurements of lag times between the flux variation of the dust emission in the K band and that of the optical continuum emission in the V band were obtained by the cross-correlation function analysis and also by an alternative method for estimating the maximum likelihood lag. The lag times strongly correlated with the optical luminosity in the luminosity range of MV = -16 to -22 mag, and the regression analysis was performed to obtain the correlation log Δt (days) = -2.11-0.2 MV assuming ΔtL 0.5, which was theoretically expected. We discuss the possible origins of the intrinsic scatter of the dust lag-luminosity correlation, which was estimated to be approximately 0.13 dex, and we find that the difference of internal extinction and delayed response of changes in lag times to the flux variations could have partly contributed to intrinsic scatter. However, we could not detect any systematic change of the correlation with the subclass of the Seyfert type or the Eddington ratio. Finally, we compare the dust reverberation radius with the near-infrared interferometric radius of the dust torus and the reverberation radius of broad Balmer emission lines. The interferometric radius in the K band was found to be systematically larger than the dust reverberation radius in the same band by the about a factor of two, which could be interpreted by the difference between the flux-weighted radius and response-weighted radius of the innermost dust torus. The reverberation radius of the broad Balmer emission lines was found to be systematically smaller than the dust reverberation radius by about a factor of four to five, which strongly supports the unified scheme of the Seyfert type of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Moreover, we examined the radius-luminosity correlations for the hard X-ray (14-195 keV) and the [O IV] λ25.89 μm emission-line luminosities, which would be applicable for obscured AGNs.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number159
    JournalAstrophysical Journal
    Volume788
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 20 Jun 2014

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Reverberation measurements of the inner radius of the dust torus in 17 seyfert galaxies'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this