The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Investigation of Continuum Lag Dependence on Broad-line Contamination and Quasar Properties

作者：Hugh W. Sharp, Y. Homayouni, Jonathan R. Trump, Scott F. Anderson, Roberto J. Assef, W. N. Brandt, Megan C. Davis, Logan B. Fries, C. J. Grier, Patrick B. Hall, K. Horne, Anton M. Koekemoer, Mary Loli Martínez‐Aldama, David M. Menezes, Theodore Peña, Cláudio Ricci, Donald P. Schneider, Yue Shen, Benny Trakhtenbrot · 发表于：The Astrophysical Journal · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.3847/1538-4357/ad0cea · 被引用次数：12 · 研究领域：Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena、Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations、Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing

Abstract This work studies the relationship between accretion-disk size and quasar properties, using a sample of 95 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project with measured lags between the g and i photometric bands. Our sample includes disk lags that are both longer and shorter than predicted by the Shakura and Sunyaev model, requiring explanations that satisfy both cases. Although our quasars each have one lag measurement, we explore the wavelength-dependent effects of diffuse broad-line region (BLR) contamination through our sample’s broad redshift range, 0.1 < z < 1.2. We do not find significant evidence of variable diffuse Fe ii and Balmer nebular emission in the rms spectra, nor from Anderson–Darling tests of quasars in redshift ranges with and without diffuse nebular emission falling in the observed-frame filters. Contrary to previous work, we do not detect a significant correlation between the measured continuum and BLR lags in our luminous quasar sample, similarly suggesting that our continuum lags are not dominated by diffuse nebular emission. Similar to other studies, we find that quasars with larger-than-expected continuum lags have lower 3000 Å luminosities, and we additionally find longer continuum lags with lower X-ray luminosities and black hole masses. Our lack of evidence for diffuse BLR contribution to the lags indicates that the anticorrelation between continuum lag and luminosity is not likely to be due to the Baldwin ef...