Bibcode
DOI
Rodriguez-Pascual, P. M.; Alloin, D.; Clavel, J.; Crenshaw, D. M.; Horne, K.; Kriss, G. A.; Krolik, J. H.; Malkan, M. A.; Netzer, H.; O'Brien, P. T.; Peterson, B. M.; Reichert, G. A.; Wamsteker, W.; Alexander, T.; Barr, P.; Blandford, R. D.; Bregman, J. N.; Carone, T. E.; Clements, S.; Courvoisier, T.-J.; De Robertis, M. M.; Dietrich, M.; Dottori, H.; Edelson, R. A.; Filippenko, A. V.; Gaskell, C. M.; Huchra, J. P.; Hutchings, J. B.; Kollatschny, W.; Koratkar, A. P.; Korista, K. T.; Laor, A.; MacAlpine, G. M.; Martin, P. G.; Maoz, D.; McCollum, B.; Morris, S. L.; Perola, G. C.; Pogge, R. W.; Ptak, R. L.; Recondo-Gonzalez, M. C.; Rodriguez-Espinosa, J. M.; Rokaki, E. L.; Santos-Lleo, M.; Sekiguchi, K.; Shull, J. M.; Snijders, M. A. J.; Sparke, L. S.; Stirpe, G. M.; Stoner, R. E.; Sun, W.-H.; Wagner, S. J.; Wanders, I.; Wilkes, B. J.; Winge, C.; Zheng, W.
Referencia bibliográfica
Astrophysical Journal Supplement v.110, p.9
Fecha de publicación:
5
1997
Número de citas
184
Número de citas referidas
167
Descripción
An 8 month monitoring campaign on the Seyfert 1 galaxy Fairall 9 has
been conducted with the International Ultraviolet Explorer in an attempt
to obtain reliable estimates of continuum-continuum and
continuum--emission-line delays for a high-luminosity active galactic
nucleus (AGN). While the results of this campaign are more ambiguous
than those of previous monitoring campaigns on lower luminosity sources,
we find general agreement with the earlier results: (1) there is no
measurable lag between ultraviolet continuum bands, and (2) the measured
emission-line time lags are very short. It is especially notable that
the Ly alpha + N V emission-line lag is about 1 order of magnitude
smaller than determined from a previous campaign by Clavel, Wamsteker,
& Glass (1989) when Fairall 9 was in a more luminous state. In other
well-monitored sources, specifically NGC 5548 and NGC 3783, the highest
ionization lines are found to respond to continuum variations more
rapidly than the lower ionization lines, which suggests a radially
ionization-stratified broad-line region. In this case, the results are
less certain, since none of the emission-line lags are very well
determined. The best-determined emission line lag is Ly alpha + N V, for
which we find that the centroid of the continuum--emission-line
cross-correlation function is tau cent ~ 14--20 days. We measure a lag
tau cent <~ 4 days for He II lambda 1640; this result is consistent
with the ionization-stratification pattern seen in lower luminosity
sources, but the relatively large uncertainties in the emission-line
lags measured here cannot rule out similar lags for Ly alpha + N V and
He II lambda 1640 at a high level of significance. We are unable to
determine a reliable lag for C IV lambda 1550, but we note that the
profiles of the variable parts of Ly alpha and C IV lambda 1550 are not
the same, which does not support the hypothesis that the strongest
variations in these two lines arise in the same region.