Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph - Distant Quasar Survey: Prescriptions for Calibrating UV-Based Estimates of Supermassive Black Hole Masses in High-Redshift Quasars

Abstract

The most reliable single-epoch supermassive black hole mass ($M_{\mathrm{BH}}$) estimates in quasars are obtained by using the velocity widths of low-ionization emission lines, typically the H$\beta$ $\lambda 4861$ line. Unfortunately, this line is redshifted out of the optical band at $z\approx 1$, leaving $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$ estimates to rely on proxy rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) emission lines, such as C IV $\lambda 1549$ or Mg II $\lambda 2800$, which contain intrinsic challenges when measuring, resulting in uncertain $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$ estimates. In this work, we aim at correcting $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$ estimates derived from the C IV and Mg II emission lines based on estimates derived from the H$\beta$ emission line. We find that employing the equivalent width of C IV in deriving $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$ estimates based on Mg II and C IV provides values that are closest to those obtained from H$\beta$. We also provide prescriptions to estimate $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$ values when only C IV, only Mg II, and both C IV and Mg II are measurable. We find that utilizing both emission lines, where available, reduces the scatter of UV-based $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$ estimates by $\sim 15\%$ when compared to previous studies. Lastly, we discuss the potential of our prescriptions to provide more accurate and precise estimates of $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$ given a much larger sample of quasars at $3.20\lesssim z\lesssim 3.50$, where both Mg II and H$\beta$ can be measured in the same near-infrared spectrum.

arXiv comment19 pages (AASTeX 6.3.1), 9 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (74)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology
• A Fundamental Relation Between Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies
• A Relationship Between Nuclear Black Hole Mass and Galaxy Velocity Dispersion
• Reverberation Measurements for 17 Quasars and the Size-Mass-Luminosity Relations in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Composite Quasar Spectra From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The M-sigma and M-L Relations in Galactic Bulges and Determinations of their Intrinsic Scatter
• A Catalog of Quasar Properties from SDSS DR7
• Some Aspects of Measurement Error in Linear Regression of Astronomical Data
• Determining Central Black Hole Masses in Distant Active Galaxies and Quasars. II. Improved Optical and UV Scaling Relationships
• The Low-Luminosity End of the Radius-Luminosity Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei
• Estimating Black Hole Masses in Active Galaxies Using the Halpha Emission Line
• The Relationship Between Luminosity and Broad-Line Region Size in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Calibration of the M-sigma Relationship for AGNs
• The Radius-Luminosity Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei: The Effect of Host-Galaxy Starlight on Luminosity Measurements II. The Full Sample of Reverberation-Mapped AGNs
• The cosmological evolution of quasar black-hole masses
• An Empirical Ultraviolet Template for Iron Emission in Quasars as Derived from I Zw 1
• Direct cosmological simulations of the growth of black holes and galaxies
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Sixteenth Data Release
• The First Galaxies
• Mass Functions of the Active Black Holes in Distant Quasars from the Large Bright Quasar Survey, the Bright Quasar Survey, and the Color-Selected Sample of the SDSS Fall Equatorial Stripe
• Keplerian Motion of Broad-Line Region Gas as Evidence for Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei
• The AGN Black Hole Mass Database
• Modeling reverberation mapping data II: dynamical modeling of the Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2008 dataset
• The mass distribution in the Galactic Centre from interferometric astrometry of multiple stellar orbits
• What controls the C IV line profile in active galactic nuclei?
• The black hole mass - stellar velocity dispersion relation of narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies
• Precise Black Hole Masses From Megamaser Disks: Black Hole-Bulge Relations at Low Mass
• Black Hole Growth to z = 2 - I: Improved Virial Methods for Measuring M_BH and L/L_Edd
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ Reverberation Measurements From First-year Spectroscopy and Photometry
• Spectral properties of quasars from Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release 14: The catalog
• Evidence for non-evolving FeII/MgII ratios in rapidly accreting z~6 QSOs
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Technical Overview
• Supermassive Black Holes with High Accretion Rates in Active Galactic Nuclei. IX 10 New Observations of Reverberation Mapping and Shortened H$\beta$ Lags
• The Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2011: Spectroscopic Campaign and Emission-Line Light Curves
• Correcting CIV-Based Virial Black Hole Masses
• 4MOST - 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope
• A Catalog of Quasar Properties from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16
• On Quasar Masses and Quasar Host Galaxies
• The Radius-Luminosity Relationship Depends on Optical Spectra in Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Velocity Shifts of Quasar Emission Lines
• Constraints on Black Hole Growth, Quasar Lifetimes, and Eddington Ratio Distributions from the SDSS Broad Line Quasar Black Hole Mass Function
• Black Hole Mass Estimates Based on CIV are Consistent with Those Based on the Balmer Lines
• The Black Hole Mass Scale of Classical and Pseudo Bulges in Active Galaxies
• No significant evolution of relations between Black hole mass and Galaxy total stellar mass up to z~2.5
• The Demographics of Broad-Line Quasars in the Mass-Luminosity Plane. I. Testing FWHM-Based Virial Black Hole Masses
• The effect of nuclear gas distribution on the mass determination of supermassive black holes
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Estimating Masses of Black Holes in Quasars with Single-Epoch Spectroscopy
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Initial CIV Lag Results from Four Years of Data
• Quenching as a Contest between Galaxy Halos and their Central Black Holes
• The X-SHOOTER/ALMA sample of Quasars in the Epoch of Reionization. I. NIR spectral modeling, iron enrichment and broad emission line properties
• Reverberation Mapping of Luminous Quasars at High-z
• On the origin of the C IV Baldwin effect in AGN
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: MgII Lag Results from Four Years of Monitoring
• Mass Functions of Supermassive Black Holes Across Cosmic Time
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: The H$\beta$ Radius-Luminosity Relation
• Weak Emission Line Quasars in the Context of a Modified Baldwin Effect
• An Upper Limit to the Degree of Evolution Between Supermassive Black Holes and their Host Galaxies
• No Redshift Evolution in the Broad Line Region Metallicity up to z=7.54: Deep NIR Spectroscopy of ULAS J1342+0928
• CIV Black Hole Mass Measurements with the Australian Dark Energy Survey (OzDES)
• Rehabilitating CIV-based black hole mass estimates in quasars
• Extending the Calibration of CIV-Based Single-Epoch Black Hole Mass Estimators for Active Galactic Nuclei
• Monitoring AGNs with H$\beta$ Asymmetry. III. Long-term Reverberation Mapping Results of 15 Palomar-Green Quasars
• Calibration and Limitations of the Mg II line-based Black Hole Masses
• Swift/UVOT grism monitoring of NGC 5548 in 2013: an attempt at MgII reverberation mapping
• Black Hole Mass Estimates and Rapid Growth of Supermassive Black Holes in Luminous $z\sim$ 3.5 Quasars
• Calibration of the virial factor $f$ in supermassive black hole masses of reverberation-mapped AGNs
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: the CIV Blueshift, Its Variability, and Its Dependence Upon Quasar Properties
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: An Investigation of Biases in CIV Emission-Line Properties
• Calibrating Mg II-based black-hole mass estimators using Low-to-High-Luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei
• Placing High-Redshift Quasars in Perspective: a Catalog of Spectroscopic Properties from the Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph -- Distant Quasar Survey
• An extended size-luminosity relation for the reverberation-mapped AGNs: the role of the accretion rate
• Systematically smaller single-epoch quasar black hole masses using a radius-luminosity relationship corrected for spectral bias
• Prescriptions for Correcting Ultraviolet-Based Redshifts for Luminous Quasars at High Redshift

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph -- Distant Quasar Survey: Augmented Spectroscopic Catalog and a Prescription for Correcting UV-Based Quasar Redshifts
• Shedding New Light on Weak Emission-Line Quasars in the C${}_{\mathrm{IV}}$-H$\beta$ Parameter Space