J/ApJ/753/L2ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/753/L2doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.17539002CDSAssef R.J.Frank S.Grier C.J.Kochanek C.S.Denney K.D.Peterson B.M.2017-10-16T14:57:35Z2014-03-24T10:12:40ZCDS support team

CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France

cds-question@unistra.fractive-galactic-nucleispectroscopyEstimates of the mass of super-massive black holes (BHs) in distant active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can be obtained efficiently only through single-epoch (SE) spectra, using a combination of their broad emission line widths and continuum luminosities. Yet the reliability and accuracy of the method and the resulting mass estimates, M_BH_, remain uncertain. A recent study by Croom using a sample of Sloan Digital Sky Survey, 2dF QSO Redshift Survey, and 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO Survey quasars suggests that line widths contribute little information about the BH mass in these SE estimates and can be replaced by a constant value without significant loss of accuracy. In this Letter, we use a sample of nearby reverberation-mapped AGNs to show that this conclusion is not universally applicable. We use the bulge luminosity (L_Bulge_) of these local objects to test how well the known M_BH_-L_Bulge_correlation is recovered when using randomly assigned line widths instead of the measured ones to estimate M_BH_. We find that line widths provide significant information about M_BH_, and that for this sample, the line width information is just as significant as that provided by the continuum luminosities. We discuss the effects of observational biases upon the analysis of Croom and suggest that the results can probably be explained as a bias of flux-limited, shallow quasar samples.2012ApJ...753L...2Ahttps://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/753/L2CatalogResearchIsServedByTAP VizieR generic serviceIsServedByConesearch servicerelated-toJ/ApJ/746/169 : Luminosity function of broad-line quasars (Shen+, 2012)J/ApJS/201/29 : Velocity dispersions in active galaxies (Harris+, 2012)J/ApJ/742/68 : HST observations of low-mass BH host galaxies (Jiang+, 2011)J/ApJ/716/993 : LAMP: reverberation mapping of H and He lines (Bentz+, 2010)J/ApJ/702/1353 : H{beta} and V-band light curves of NGC 4051 (Denney+, 2009)J/ApJ/699/800 : Mass functions of active black holes (Vestergaard+, 2009)J/ApJ/670/92 : New sample of low-mass black holes in AGN (Greene+, 2007)J/ApJ/667/131 : Mass function of active black holes (Greene+, 2007)J/ApJS/168/1 : Black hole mass estimates (Kelly+, 2007)J/ApJ/641/L21 : Black hole mass & velocity dispersion relation (Greene+, 2006)J/ApJ/613/682 : AGN central masses & broad-line region sizes (Peterson+, 2004)J/ApJ/614/91 : Black hole mass and accretion rate of AGNs (Wu+, 2004)J/ApJ/596/437 : Stellar-mass black holes in the SDSS (Chisholm+, 2003)https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.htmlhttps://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/753/L2https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/753/L2http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/753/L2https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/ApJ/753/L2https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/ApJ/753/L2http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/ApJ/753/L2GETtext/xml+votablehttps://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tapCone search capability for table J/ApJ/753/L2/table1 (Reverberation mapping properties for 34 AGNs)https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/753/L2/table1?https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/753/L2/table1?http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/753/L2/table1?GETtext/xml+votable180.050000true1.581591720.20293890.0055555555555555566/4439 5091 5731 6977 7246 7642 8071 8528 8922 10039 10691 10927 11490 11668 11898 12380 16301 17727 19283 19746 19883 19932 22890 23323 25965 26148 26292 26509 27862 28060 34881 38268 43877 49042https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/moc/J/ApJ/753/L2?format=asciiOpticaldefaultJ/ApJ/753/L2/table1Reverberation mapping properties for 34 AGNsNameObject namemeta.id;meta.maincharrecnoRecord number assigned by the VizieR team. Should Not be used for identification.meta.recordintNNumber of estimations for this sourcemeta.numberintnullableL5100[41.8/46] Log of 510nm luminosity (erg/s)log(1e-07W)phys.luminosityfloate_L5100[0.03/0.2] Uncertainty in L5100log(1e-07W)stat.errorfloatLB[42.6/45.1] Log of Bulge luminositylog(1e-07W)phys.luminosityfloatFWHM[799/12694] Full-Width at Half-Maximum of the linekm/sspect.line.widthinte_FWHM[2/426] Uncertainty in FWHMkm/sstat.error;phys.angSizeintsigma[953/3744] Line dispersionkm/sinstr.dispersion;spect.lineinte_sigma[1/642] Uncertainty in sigmakm/sstat.errorintl_NspLimit flag on Nspmeta.code.errorcharNsp[14/194] Number of spectra usedmeta.numberintRefReference (1)meta.ref;pos.frameintP04Display the data from Cat. J/ApJ/613/682 within 4"meta.numberintnullableSimbadSimbad column added by the CDSmeta.ref.urlcharNEDSimbad column added by the CDSmeta.refchar_RAPositions from SIMBAD database (right ascension part)degpos.eq.ra;meta.main_DEPositions from SIMBAD database (declination part)degpos.eq.dec;meta.main