SALT long-slit spectroscopy of CTS C30.10: two-component Mg II line^{⋆,⋆⋆,⋆⋆⋆}

¹ Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Bartycka 18, 00-716 Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: bcz@camk.edu.pl
² Astrophysics, Cosmology and Gravity Centre, Department of Astronomy, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa
³ ISDC Data Centre for Astrophysics, Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genève, Chemin d’Ecogia 16, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
⁴ Astronomical Observatory of the Jagiellonian University, Orla 171, 30-244 Cracow, Poland
⁵ Warsaw University Observatory, Al. Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478 Warszawa, Poland

Received: 3 June 2014
Accepted: 5 August 2014

Abstract

Context. Quasars can be used as a complementary tool to SN Ia to probe the distribution of dark energy in the Universe by measuring the time delay of the emission line with respect to the continuum. The understanding of the Mg II emission line structure is important for cosmological application and for the black hole mass measurements of intermediate redshift quasars.

Aims. Knowing the shape of Mg II line and its variability allows for identifying which part of the line should be used to measure the time delay and the black hole mass. We thus aim at determining the structure and the variability of the Mg II line, as well as the underlying Fe II pseudo-continuum.

Methods. We performed five spectroscopic observations of a quasar CTS C30.10 (z = 0.9000) with the SALT telescope between December 2012 and March 2014, and we studied the variations in the spectral shape in the 2700 Å−2900 Å rest frame.

Results. We show that the Mg II line in this source consists of two kinematic components, which makes the source representative of type B quasars. Both components were modeled well with a Lorentzian shape, and they vary in a similar way. The Fe II contribution seems to be related only to the first (blue) Mg II component. Broad band spectral fitting instead favor the use of the whole line profile. The contribution of the narrow line region to Mg II is very low, below 2%. The Mg II variability is lower than the variability of the continuum, which is consistent with the simple reprocessing scenario. The variability level of CTS C30.10 and the measurement accuracy of the line and continuum is high enough to expect that further monitoring will allow the time delay between the Mg II line and continuum to be measured.