BASS. XXV. DR2 Broad-line-based Black Hole Mass Estimates and Biases from Obscuration

Mejía-Restrepo J.E.; Trakhtenbrot B.; Koss M.J.; Oh K.; Den Brok J.; Stern D.; Powell M.C.; Ricci F.; Caglar T.; Ricci C.; Bauer F.E.; Treister E.; Harrison F.A.; Urry C.M.; Ananna T.T.; et. al.

Abstract

We present measurements of broad emission lines and virial estimates of supermassive black hole masses (M BH) for a large sample of ultrahard X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) as part of the second data release of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS/DR2). Our catalog includes M BH estimates for a total of 689 AGNs, determined from the Hα, Hβ, Mg ii λ2798, and/or C iv λ1549 broad emission lines. The core sample includes a total of 512 AGNs drawn from the 70 month Swift/BAT all-sky catalog. We also provide measurements for 177 additional AGNs that are drawn from deeper Swift/BAT survey data. We study the links between M BH estimates and line-of-sight obscuration measured from X-ray spectral analysis. We find that broad Hα emission lines in obscured AGNs ( log(NH/cm-2)>22.0 ) are on average a factor of 8.0-2.4+4.1 weaker relative to ultrahard X-ray emission and about 35-12+7 % narrower than those in unobscured sources (i.e., log(NH/cm-2)<21.5 ). This indicates that the innermost part of the broad-line region is preferentially absorbed. Consequently, current single-epoch M BH prescriptions result in severely underestimated (>1 dex) masses for Type 1.9 sources (AGNs with broad Hα but no broad Hβ) and/or sources with log(NH/cm-2)≳22.0 . We provide simple multiplicative corrections for the observed luminosity and width of the broad Hα component (L[bHα] and FWHM[bHα]) in such sources to account for this effect and to (partially) remedy M BH estimates for Type 1.9 objects. As a key ingredient of BASS/DR2, our work provides the community with the data needed to further study powerful AGNs in the low-redshift universe.

Más información

Título según WOS: BASS. XXV. DR2 Broad-line-based Black Hole Mass Estimates and Biases from Obscuration
Título según SCOPUS: BASS. XXV. DR2 Broad-line-based Black Hole Mass Estimates and Biases from Obscuration
Título de la Revista: Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series
Volumen: 261
Número: 1
Editorial: American Astronomical Society
Fecha de publicación: 2022
Idioma: English
DOI:

10.3847/1538-4365/ac6602

Notas: ISI, SCOPUS