Centro Astronomico Hispano Alemán
As the 15th paper in a series reporting on a large reverberation mapping (RM) campaign of super-Eddington accreting massive black holes (SEAMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs), we present the results of measurements of the Mg II lines in 18 SEAMBHs monitored spectroscopically from 2017 to 2024. Among these, the time lags of Mg II have been successfully determined for 8 of the 18 objects, thereby expanding the current Mg II RM sample, particularly at higher accretion rates. By incorporating measurements of the line widths, we determine the masses of their central supermassive black holes. Based on these new measurements, we update the relation between the Mg II radius and the monochromatic luminosity at 3000 A˚\mathring{\mathrm{A}} (RMgIIL3000R_{\rm MgII}-L_{3000} relation), yielding a slope of 0.24±0.030.24 \pm 0.03, which is slightly shallower than, yet still consistent with, previously reported values. Similar to the Hβ\beta lines, the Mg II time lags in SEAMBHs are shorter than those of AGNs with normal accretion rates at comparable luminosities. The deviation of AGNs from the best-fit RMgIIL3000R_{\rm MgII}-L_{3000} relation shows a strong correlation with the accretion rate, while no significant correlation is found between the deviation and the flux ratio of UV iron to Mg II.
We measure the black hole mass and investigate the accretion flow around the local (z=0.0502z=0.0502) quasar PG 1119+120. Spectroscopic monitoring with Calar Alto provides Hβ\beta lags and linewidths from which we estimate a black hole mass of log(M/M)=7.0\log \left(M_{\bullet}/\mathrm{M}_{\odot} \right) = 7.0, uncertain by 0.4\sim0.4 dex. High cadence photometric monitoring over two years with the Las Cumbres Observatory provides lightcurves in 7 optical bands suitable for intensive continuum reverberation mapping. We identify variability on two timescales. Slower variations on a 100-day timescale exhibit excess flux and increased lag in the uu' band and are thus attributable to diffuse bound-free continuum emission from the broad line region. Faster variations that we attribute to accretion disc reprocessing lack a uu'-band excess and have flux and delay spectra consistent with either τλ4/3\tau \propto \lambda^{4/3}, as expected for a temperature structure of T(R)R3/4T(R) \propto R^{-3/4} for a thin accretion disc, or τλ2\tau \propto \lambda^{2} expected for a slim disc. Decomposing the flux into variable (disc) and constant (host galaxy) components, we find the disc SED to be flatter than expected with fνconstf_{\nu} \sim \rm{const}. Modelling the SED predicts an Eddington ratio of λEdd>1\lambda_{\rm Edd} > 1, where the flat spectrum can be reproduced by a slim disc with little dust extinction or a thin disc which requires more dust extinction. While this accretion is super-Eddington, the geometry is still unclear, however a slim disc is expected due to the high radiation pressure at these accretion rates, and is entirely consistent with our observations.
We conduct a reverberation mapping (RM) campaign to spectroscopically monitor a sample of selected bright active galactic nuclei with large anticipated broad-line region (BLR) sizes adequate for spectroastrometric observations by the GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. We report the first results for five objects, IC 4329A, Mrk 335, Mrk 509, Mrk 1239, and PDS 456, among which Mrk 1239 and PDS 456 are for the first time spectroscopically monitored. We obtain multi-year monitoring data and perform multi-component spectral decomposition to extract the broad Hβ\beta profiles. We detect significant time lags between the Hβ\beta and continuum variations, generally obeying the previously established BLR size-luminosity relation. Velocity-resolved Hβ\beta time lags illustrate diverse, possibly evolving BLR kinematics. We further measure the Hβ\beta line widths from mean and rms spectra and the resulting virial products show good consistency among different seasons. Adopting a unity virial factor and the full width at half maximum of the broad Hβ\beta line from the mean spectrum as the measure of velocity, the obtained black hole mass averaged over seasons is logM/M=8.020.14+0.09\log M_\bullet/M_\odot=8.02_{-0.14}^{+0.09}, 6.920.12+0.126.92_{-0.12}^{+0.12}, 8.010.25+0.168.01_{-0.25}^{+0.16}, 7.440.14+0.137.44_{-0.14}^{+0.13}, and 8.590.11+0.078.59_{-0.11}^{+0.07} for the five objects, respectively. The black hole mass estimations using other line width measures are also reported (up to the virial factors). For objects with previous RM campaigns, our mass estimates are in agreement with earlier results. In a companion paper, we will employ BLR dynamical modeling to directly infer the black hole mass and thereby determine the virial factors.
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