Issue |
A&A
Volume 690, October 2024
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A76 | |
Number of page(s) | 14 | |
Section | Extragalactic astronomy | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202450746 | |
Published online | 02 October 2024 |
VLTI/GRAVITY interferometric measurements of the innermost dust structure sizes around active galactic nuclei⋆
1
Universidade de Lisboa – Faculdade de Ciências, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
2
CENTRA – Centro de Astrofísica e Gravitação, IST, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
3
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), Giessenbachstr. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
4
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
5
LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Univ. Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 5 Place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon, France
6
Leiden University, 2311 EZ Leiden, The Netherlands
7
Department of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences, JILA, University of Colorado, Duane Physics Bldg. 2000 Colorado Ave, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
8
I. Institute of Physics, University of Cologne, Zülpicher Straße 77, 50937 Cologne, Germany
9
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
10
European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Córdova 3107, Casilla, 19001 Vitacura, Santiago, Chile
11
Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
12
Departments of Physics and Astronomy, Le Conte Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
13
Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2611, Australia
14
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
15
Department of Astrophysics & Atmospheric Sciences, Kyoto Sangyo University, Kamigamo-motoyama, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8555, Japan
16
European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching, Germany
17
Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Laboratoire Lagrange, Nice, France
18
School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
19
Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, 38000 Grenoble, France
20
Retired – c/o T.L. Turner, 205 South Prospect Street, Granville, OH 43023, USA
21
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
22
Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, 162 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010, USA
Received:
16
May
2024
Accepted:
18
July
2024
We present new Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI)/GRAVITY near-infrared interferometric measurements of the angular size of the innermost hot dust continuum for 14 type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The angular sizes are resolved on scales of ∼0.7 mas and the inferred ring radii range from 0.028 to 1.33 pc, comparable to those reported previously and a factor of 10−20 smaller than the mid-infrared sizes in the literature. Combining our new data with previously published values, we compiled a sample of 25 AGNs with bolometric luminosity ranging from 1042 to 1047 erg s−1, with which we studied the radius-luminosity (R − L) relation for the hot dust structure. Our interferometric measurements of radius are offset by a factor of 2 from the equivalent relation derived through reverberation mapping. Using a simple model to explore the dust structure’s geometry, we conclude that this offset can be explained if the 2 μm emitting surface has a concave shape. Our data show that the slope of the relation is in line with the canonical R ∝ L0.5 when using an appropriately non-linear correction for bolometric luminosity. In contrast, using optical luminosity or applying a constant bolometric correction to it results in a significant deviation in the slope, suggesting a potential luminosity dependence on the spectral energy distribution. Over four orders of magnitude in luminosity, the intrinsic scatter around the R − L relation is 0.2 dex, suggesting a tight correlation between the innermost hot dust structure size and the AGN luminosity.
Key words: techniques: interferometric / galaxies: active / galaxies: nuclei / galaxies: Seyfert
GRAVITY is developed in a collaboration by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, LESIA of Observatoire de Paris/Université PSL/CNRS/Sorbonne Université/Université de Paris and IPAG of Université Grenoble Alpes/CNRS, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, the University of Cologne, the CENTRA – Centro de Astrofisicae Gravitação, and the European Southern Observatory.
© The Authors 2024
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Open Access funding provided by Max Planck Society.
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