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Uncertainties of the masses of black holes and Eddington ratios in AGN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2006

Suzy Collin
Suzy Collin*
Affiliation:
LUTH, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, 5 Place Janssen, 92140 Meudon, France email: suzy.collin@obspm.fr
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Abstract

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Black hole masses in Active Galactic Nuclei have been determined in 35 objects through reverberation mapping of the emission line region. I mention some uncertainties of the method, such as the “scale factor” relating the Virial Product to the mass, which depends on the unknown structure and dynamics of the Broad Line Region.

When the black hole masses are estimated indirectly using the empirical size-luminosity relation deduced from this method, the uncertainties can be larger, especially when the relation is extrapolated to high and low masses and/or luminosities. In particular they lead to Eddington ratiosof the order of unity in samples of Narrow Line Seyfert 1. As the optical-UV luminosity is provided by the accretion disk, the accretion rates can be determined and are found to be much larger than the Eddington rates.

So, accretion must be performed at a super-critical rate through a slim disk, resulting in rapid growth of the black holes. The alternative is that the mass determination is wrong at this limit.

Keywords

Quasars: general – galaxies: active
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 2 , Symposium S238: Black Holes from Stars to Galaxies – Across the Range of Masses , August 2006 , pp. 111 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2007

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