BROAD-LINE REVERBERATION IN THE KEPLER-FIELD SEYFERT GALAXY Zw 229-015 Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The Seyfert 1 galaxy Zw 229-015 is among the brightest active galaxies being monitored by the Kepler mission. In order to determine the black hole mass in Zw 229-015 from H reverberation mapping, we have carried out nightly observations with the Kast Spectrograph at the Lick 3 m telescope during the dark runs from 2010 June through December, obtaining 54 spectroscopic observations in total. We have also obtained nightly V-band imaging with the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope at Lick Observatory and with the 0.9 m telescope at the Brigham Young University West Mountain Observatory over the same period. We detect strong variability in the source, which exhibited more than a factor of two change in broad H flux. From cross-correlation measurements, we find that the H light curve has a rest-frame lag of 3.86+0.69-0.90 days with respect to the V-band continuum variations. We also measure reverberation lags for H and H and find an upper limit to the H lag. Combining the H lag measurement with a broad H width of line = 1590 47 km s-1 measured from the rms variability spectrum, we obtain a virial estimate of M BH = 1.00+0.19-0.24 107 M for the black hole in Zw 229-015. As a Kepler target, Zw 229-015 will eventually have one of the highest-quality optical light curves ever measured for any active galaxy, and the black hole mass determined from reverberation mapping will serve as a benchmark for testing relationships between black hole mass and continuum variability characteristics in active galactic nuclei. 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

published proceedings

  • The Astrophysical Journal

author list (cited authors)

  • Barth, A. J., Nguyen, M. L., Malkan, M. A., Filippenko, A. V., Li, W., Gorjian, V., ... Zeisse, C.

citation count

  • 83

complete list of authors

  • Barth, Aaron J||Nguyen, My L||Malkan, Matthew A||Filippenko, Alexei V||Li, Weidong||Gorjian, Varoujan||Joner, Michael D||Bennert, Vardha Nicola||Botyanszki, Janos||Cenko, S Bradley||Childress, Michael||Choi, Jieun||Comerford, Julia M||Cucciara, Antonino||da Silva, Robert||Duchêne, Gaspard||Fumagalli, Michele||Ganeshalingam, Mohan||Gates, Elinor L||Gerke, Brian F||Griffith, Christopher V||Harris, Chelsea||Hintz, Eric G||Hsiao, Eric||Kandrashoff, Michael T||Keel, William C||Kirkman, David||Kleiser, Io KW||Laney, C David||Lee, Jeffrey||Lopez, Liliana||Lowe, Thomas B||Moody, J Ward||Morton, Alekzandir||Nierenberg, AM||Nugent, Peter||Pancoast, Anna||Rex, Jacob||Rich, R Michael||Silverman, Jeffrey M||Smith, Graeme H||Sonnenfeld, Alessandro||Suzuki, Nao||Tytler, David||Walsh, Jonelle L||Woo, Jong-Hak||Yang, Yizhe||Zeisse, Carl

publication date

  • May 2011