| Title: |
Intensive swift and LCO monitoring of PG 1302–102 : active galactic nucleus disk reverberation mapping of a supermassive black hole binary candidate |
| Authors: |
Liu, Tingting; Edelson, Rick; Hernández Santisteban, Juan V.; Kara, Erin; Montano, John; Gelbord, Jonathan; Horne, Keith; Barth, Aaron J.; Cackett, Edward M.; Kaplan, David L. |
| Contributors: |
University of St Andrews.School of Physics and Astronomy; University of St Andrews.St Andrews Centre for Exoplanet Science |
| Publication Year: |
2024 |
| Collection: |
University of St Andrews: Digital Research Repository |
| Subject Terms: |
Supermassive black holes; Reverberation mapping; Active galactic nuclei; QB Astronomy; 3rd-DAS; QB |
| Description: |
This work is supported by the NANOGrav National Science Foundation Physics Frontiers Center award No. 2020265 and NASA grant 80NSSC24K0251. Research at UC Irvine was supported by NSF grant AST-1907290. E.M.C. gratefully acknowledges support from the NSF through grant No. AST-1909199. ; We present an intensive multiwavelength monitoring campaign of the quasar PG 1302−102 with Swift and the Las Cumbres Observatory network telescopes. At z ∼ 0.3, it tests the limits of the reverberation mapping (RM) technique in probing the accretion disk around a supermassive black hole (SMBH) and extends the parameter space to high masses and high accretion rates. This is also the first time the RM technique has been applied to test disk structures predicted in the SMBH binary model that has been suggested for this source. PG 1302−102 was observed at a ∼daily cadence for ∼9 months in 14 bands spanning from X-ray to UV and optical wavelengths, and it shows moderate to significant levels of variability correlated between wavelengths. We measure the interband time lags, which are consistent with a τ ∝ λ 4/3 relation as expected from standard disk reprocessing, albeit with large uncertainties. The disk size implied by the lag spectrum is consistent with the expected disk size for its black hole mass within uncertainties. While the source resembles other reverberation-mapped active galactic nuclei in many respects, and we do not find evidence supporting the prevalent hypothesis that it hosts an SMBH binary, we demonstrate the feasibility of studying SMBH binaries from this novel angle and suggest possibilities for the LSST Deep Drilling Fields. ; Peer reviewed |
| Document Type: |
article in journal/newspaper |
| File Description: |
application/pdf |
| Language: |
English |
| Relation: |
Astrophysical Journal; 298517376; 85188932516; Jisc: 1861137; manuscript: ad23e2; other: aas50811; https://hdl.handle.net/10023/30017; https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85188932516 |
| DOI: |
10.3847/1538-4357/ad23e2 |
| Availability: |
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/30017; https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad23e2; https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85188932516 |
| Rights: |
Copyright © 2024. The Author(s). Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.AC3E38F3 |
| Database: |
BASE |