Issue |
A&A
Volume 435, Number 3, June I 2005
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 811 - 820 | |
Section | Extragalactic astronomy | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20041206 | |
Published online | 13 May 2005 |
The mass of the black hole in 3C 273
1
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, BP 8, 13376 Marseille Cedex 12, France e-mail: Stephane.Paltani@obs.unige.ch
2
INTEGRAL Science Data Centre, Ch. d'Écogia 16, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
3
Geneva Observatory, Ch. des Maillettes 51, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
Received:
30
April
2004
Accepted:
7
January
2005
In this paper we apply the reverberation method to determine
the mass of the black hole in 3C 273 from the Lyα and Civ emission
lines using archival IUE observations. Following the standard
assumptions of the method, we find a maximum-likelihood estimate of
the mass of , with a
confidence
interval
. This estimate is more than
one order of magnitude larger than that obtained in a previous study
using Balmer lines. We reanalyze the optical data and show that the
method applied to the Hα, Hβ, and Hγ Balmer lines produce mass
estimates lower by a factor 2.5, but already much larger than the
previous estimate derived from the same lines. The finding of such a
high mass in a face-on object is a strong indication that the gas
motion is not confined to the accretion disk. The new mass estimate
makes 3C 273 accreting with an accretion rate about six times lower
than the Eddington rate. We discuss the implications of our result
for the broad-line-region size and black-hole mass vs. luminosity
relationships for the set of objects for which reverberation
black-hole masses have been obtained. We find that, while objects
with super-Eddington luminosities might theoretically be possible,
their existence is not necessarily implied by this sample.
Key words: line: profiles / galaxies: quasars: emission lines / galaxies: quasars: individual: 3C 273 / ultraviolet: galaxies
© ESO, 2005
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