Modelling the UV/optical continuum time-lags in AGN

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985815%3A_____%2F21%3A00548100" target="_blank" >RIV/67985815:_____/21:00548100 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab725" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab725</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab725" target="_blank" >10.1093/mnras/stab725</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Modelling the UV/optical continuum time-lags in AGN

Original language description

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.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10308 - Astronomy (including astrophysics,space science)

Project

<a href="/en/project/GX21-06825X" target="_blank" >GX21-06825X: Accreting Black Holes in the new era of X-ray polarimetry missions</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

ISSN

0035-8711

e-ISSN

1365-2966

Volume of the periodical

503

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

9

Pages from-to

4163-4171

UT code for WoS article

000649000600072

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85106318605