The physical relation between disc and coronal emission in quasars

Abstract

We propose a modified version of the observed non-linear relation between the X-ray (2 keV) and the ultraviolet (2500 Å) emission in quasars (i.e. $L_{\mathrm{X}}\propto L_{\mathrm{UV}}^{\gamma }$) which involves the full width at half-maximum, FWHM, of the broad emission line, i.e. $L_{\mathrm{X}}\propto L_{\mathrm{UV}}^{\hat{\gamma }}FWH{M}^{\hat{\beta }}$. By analysing a sample of 550 optically selected non-jetted quasars in the redshift range of 0.36-2.23 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey cross matched with the XMM-Newton catalogue 3XMM-DR6, we found that the additional dependence of the observed $L_{\mathrm{X}}-L_{\mathrm{UV}}$ correlation on the FWHM of the MgII broad emission line is statistically significant. Our statistical analysis leads to a much tighter relation with respect to the one neglecting FWHM, and it does not evolve with redshift. We interpret this new relation within an accretion disc corona scenario where reconnection and magnetic loops above the accretion disc can account for the production of the primary X-ray radiation. For a broad line region size depending on the disc luminosity as $R_{\mathrm{blr}}\propto L_{\mathrm{disc}}^{0.5}$, we find that $L_{\mathrm{X}}\propto L_{\mathrm{UV}}^{4/7}FWH{M}^{4/7}$, which is in very good agreement with the observed correlation.

8 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, Research Topic "Quasars at all cosmic epochs"; proceedings of the conference "Quasars at all cosmic epochs", held in Padova, April 2-7, 2017

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