Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-20-2018
Abstract
We present optical continuum lags for two Seyfert 1 galaxies, MCG+08-11-011 and NGC 2617, using monitoring data from a reverberation mapping campaign carried out in 2014. Our light curves span the ugriz filters over four months, with median cadences of 1.0 and 0.6 days for MCG+08-11-011 and NGC 2617, respectively, combined with roughly daily X-ray and near-UV data from Swift for NGC 2617. We find lags consistent with geometrically thin accretion-disk models that predict a lag-wavelength relation of τ ∝ λ 4/3. However, the observed lags are larger than predictions based on standard thin-disk theory by factors of 3.3 for MCG+08-11-011 and 2.3 for NGC 2617. These differences can be explained if the mass accretion rates are larger than inferred from the optical luminosity by a factor of 4.3 in MCG+08-11-011 and a factor of 1.3 in NGC 2617, although uncertainty in the SMBH masses determines the significance of this result. While the X-ray variability in NGC 2617 precedes the UV/optical variability, the long (2.6 day) lag is problematic for coronal reprocessing models.
Publication Source (Journal or Book title)
Astrophysical Journal
Recommended Citation
Fausnaugh, M., Starkey, D., Horne, K., Kochanek, C., Peterson, B., Bentz, M., Denney, K., Grier, C., Grupe, D., Pogge, R., De Rosa, G., Adams, S., Barth, A., Beatty, T., Bhattacharjee, A., Borman, G., Boroson, T., Bottorff, M., Brown, J., Brown, J., Brotherton, M., Coker, C., Crawford, S., Croxall, K., Eftekharzadeh, S., Eracleous, M., Joner, M., Henderson, C., Holoien, T., Hutchison, T., Kaspi, S., Kim, S., & King, A. (2018). Continuum Reverberation Mapping of the Accretion Disks in Two Seyfert 1 Galaxies. Astrophysical Journal, 854 (2) https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aaaa2b