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Paper: Evidence for Broad-Line Region Outflows and Their Impact on Black Hole Mass Measurements
Volume: 460, AGN Winds in Charleston
Page: 103
Authors: Denney, K. D.; Assef, R. J.; Horne, K.; Peterson, B. M.; Vestergaard, M.
Abstract: Recent velocity-resolved reverberation mapping results have shown indications of possible outflowing gas from the Hβ emitting region of the broad-line region (BLR) in NGC 3227 (Denney et al. 2009, 2010). We show a preliminary velocity-delay map (VDM) from these data that suggests the 2D gas motions could not be fully and accurately interpreted from the 1D velocity-resolved reverberation signal. From the VDM, an outflow component to the emission remains possible but appears to be in addition to an underlying, disk-like BLR structure consistent in size with the measured reverberation lag. The black hole (BH) mass derived from this data is therefore secure from any uncertainties possibly derived from gravitationally unbound gas contributing to the emission. Additionally, we demonstrate that BLR emission from the C IV λ1549 broad emission line can reliably be used as a virial BH mass estimator. The presence of self-absorption, blueshifts, and asymmetries observed in C IV, and possibly connected with outflows, has raised questions in the literature regarding the reliability of using this line for mass estimates. However, our new results (Assef et al. 2011) show that C IV-based masses are in agreement with those of Hβ when (1) data quality is a priority and (2) a color-correction is applied to the luminosity used to compute the mass estimates.
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