A Microlensing Accretion Disk Size Measurement in the Lensed Quasar WFI 2026-4536

Abstract

We use thirteen seasons of R-band photometry from the 1.2m Leonard Euler Swiss Telescope at La Silla to examine microlensing variability in the quadruply-imaged lensed quasar WFI 2026-4536. The lightcurves exhibit $\sim 0.2\text{mag}$ of uncorrelated variability across all epochs and a prominent single feature of $\sim 0.1\text{mag}$ within a single season. We analyze this variability to constrain the size of the quasar's accretion disk. Adopting a nominal inclination of 60${}^{\text{o}}$, we find an accretion disk scale radius of $\log (r_s/\text{cm})=15.74_{-0.29}^{+0.34}$ at a rest-frame wavelength of $2043\,\unicode{xC5}$, and we estimate a black hole mass of $\log (M_{\text{BH}}/M_{\odot })=9.18_{-0.34}^{+0.39}$, based on the CIV line in VLT spectra. This size measurement is fully consistent with the Quasar Accretion Disk Size - Black Hole Mass relation, providing another system in which the accretion disk is larger than predicted by thin disk theory.

arXiv comment26 pages, 8 figures, Appendix with data table, pg 12-25

References in corpus (56)

• A Universal Density Profile from Hierarchical Clustering
• Unified Schemes for Radio-Loud Active Galactic Nuclei
• Central Masses and Broad-Line Region Sizes of Active Galactic Nuclei. II. A Homogeneous Analysis of a Large Reverberation-Mapping Database
• Determining Central Black Hole Masses in Distant Active Galaxies and Quasars. II. Improved Optical and UV Scaling Relationships
• Are the Variations in Quasar Optical Flux Driven by Thermal Fluctuations?
• Modeling the Time Variability of SDSS Stripe 82 Quasars as a Damped Random Walk
• The Ensemble Photometric Variability of ~25000 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Quasar Accretion Disk Size -- Black Hole Mass Relation
• The Quasar Accretion Disk Size - Black Hole Mass Relation
• Space Telescope and Optical Reverberation Mapping Project. II. Swift and HST Reverberation Mapping of the Accretion Disk of NGC 5548
• Testing thermal reprocessing in AGN accretion discs
• Quantitative Interpretation of Quasar Microlensing Light Curves
• The Sizes of the X-ray and Optical Emission Regions of RXJ1131-1231
• Sizes and Temperature Profiles of Quasar Accretion Disks from Chromatic Microlensing
• The Lick AGN Monitoring Project: Reverberation Mapping of Optical Hydrogen and Helium Recombination Lines
• X-Ray and Optical Flux Ratio Anomalies in Quadruply Lensed Quasars: I. Zooming in on Quasar Emission Regions
• Deconvolution with correct sampling
• HST Observations of 10 Two-Image Gravitational Lenses
• The Time Delays of Gravitational Lens HE0435-1223: An Early-Type Galaxy With a Rising Rotation Curve
• Size is Everything: Universal Features of Quasar Microlensing with Extended Sources
• Accretion disk reverberation with Hubble Space Telescope observations of NGC 4593: evidence for diffuse continuum lags
• Strong Lens Time Delay Challenge: II. Results of TDC1
• The Microlensing Properties of a Sample of 87 Lensed Quasars
• COSMOGRAIL: the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses XI. Techniques for time delay measurement in presence of microlensing
• The Structure of the X-ray and Optical Emitting Regions of the Lensed Quasar Q 2237+0305
• X-Ray and Optical Microlensing in the Lensed Quasar PG 1115+080
• The redshift distribution of gravitational lenses revisited: Constraints on galaxy mass evolution
• Further Evidence that Quasar X-Ray Emitting Regions Are Compact: X-Ray and Optical Microlensing in the Lensed Quasar Q J0158-4325
• AN IMPROVED MEASURE OF QUASAR ORIENTATION
• WFI J2026-4536 and WFI J2033-4723: Two New Quadruple Gravitational Lenses
• A microlensing study of the accretion disc in the quasar MG 0414+0534
• A calibration of the stellar mass fundamental plane at z ~ 0.5 using the micro-lensing induced flux ratio anomalies of macro-lensed quasars
• A Robust Determination of the size of quasar accretion disks using gravitational microlensing
• COSMOGRAIL: the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses VII. Time delays and the Hubble constant from WFI J2033-4723
• Calibrating CIV-based black hole mass estimators
• COSMOGRAIL: the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses XV. Assessing the achievability and precision of time-delay measurements
• COSMOGRAIL XVII: Time delays for the quadruply imaged quasar PG 1115+080
• X-Ray And Optical Flux Ratio Anomalies In Quadruply Lensed Quasars. II. Mapping the Dark Matter Content in Elliptical Galaxies
• Accretion Disk Temperatures and Continuum Colors in QSOs
• The CASTLES project
• COSMOGRAIL: the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses V. The time delay in SDSS J1650+4251
• A Consistent Picture Emerges: A Compact X-ray Continuum Emission Region in the Gravitationally Lensed Quasar SDSS J0924+0219
• A Study of Gravitational Lens Chromaticity using Ground-based Narrow Band Photometry
• CIV Line-Width Anomalies: The Perils of Low S/N Spectra
• The Optical, Ultraviolet, and X-ray Structure of the Quasar HE 0435-1223
• Microlensing of the Lensed Quasar SDSS0924+0219
• Non-Blackbody Disks Can Help Explain Inferred AGN Accretion Disk Sizes
• Accretion Disk Size Measurement and Time Delays in the Lensed Quasar WFI 2033-4723
• A deconvolution-based algorithm for crowded field photometry with unknown Point Spread Function
• Probing the Broad Line Region and the Accretion Disk in the Lensed Quasars HE0435-1223, WFI2033-4723, and HE2149-2745 using Gravitational Microlensing
• Time Delay and Accretion Disk Size Measurements in the Lensed Quasar SBS 0909+532 from Multiwavelength Microlensing Analysis
• COSMOGRAIL: the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses VIII. Deconvolution of high resolution near-IR images and simple mass models for 7 gravitationally lensed quasars
• HST imaging of four gravitationally lensed quasars
• A New Microlensing Event in the Doubly-Imaged Quasar Q0957+561
• Quasar microlensing light curve analysis using deep machine learning
• Results from the CASTLES Survey of Gravitational Lenses

Cited by in corpus (19)

• COSMOGRAIL XIX: Time delays in 18 strongly lensed quasars from 15 years of optical monitoring
• Red quasars blow out molecular gas from galaxies during the peak of cosmic star formation
• Measuring accretion disk sizes of lensed quasars with microlensing time delay in multi-band light curves
• A Survey for High-redshift Gravitationally Lensed Quasars and Close Quasars Pairs. I. the Discoveries of an Intermediately-lensed Quasar and a Kpc-scale Quasar Pair at $z\sim 5$
• Near infrared and optical continuum emission region size measurements in the gravitationally lensed quasars Q0957+561 and SBS0909+532
• Evidence for a milliparsec-separation Supermassive Binary Black Hole with quasar microlensing
• Discovering Strongly-lensed QSOs From Unresolved Light Curves
• Diffuse emission in microlensed quasars and its implications for accretion-disk physics
• X-ray illuminated accretion discs and quasar microlensing disc sizes
• Probing compact dark matter objects with microlensing in gravitationally lensed quasars
• Continuum reverberation mapping of MCG 08-11-011
• Revealing the structure of the lensed quasar Q 0957+561 III. Constraints on the size of the broad-line region
• Simulating time-varying strong lenses
• Resolving the inner accretion flow towards the central supermassive black hole in SDSS J1339+1310
• Time delay estimation in unresolved lensed quasars
• Scalable and Robust Multiband Modeling of AGN Light Curves in Rubin-LSST
• Cosmological nanolensing by dense gas clouds
• Detection of colour variations from gravitational microlensing observations in the quadruple quasar HE0435-1223: Implications for the accretion disk
• Detecting dark matter substructure with lensed quasars in optical bands