Evidence for Orbital Motion of Material Close to the Central Black Hole of Mrk 766

Time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy has been obtained for the narrow line Seyfert galaxy Mrk766 from XMM-Newton observations. We present analysis in the energy-time plane of EPIC pn data in the 4-8 keV band with energy resolution R~50. A component of Fe Ka emission detected in the maps shows a variatio...

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Main Authors: Turner, T, Miller, L, George, I, Reeves, J
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2005
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author Turner, T
Miller, L
George, I
Reeves, J
author_facet Turner, T
Miller, L
George, I
Reeves, J
author_sort Turner, T
collection OXFORD
description Time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy has been obtained for the narrow line Seyfert galaxy Mrk766 from XMM-Newton observations. We present analysis in the energy-time plane of EPIC pn data in the 4-8 keV band with energy resolution R~50. A component of Fe Ka emission detected in the maps shows a variation of photon energy with time that appears both to be statistically significant and to be consistent with sinusoidal variation. We investigate the interpretation that there exists a component of line emission from matter in a Keplerian orbit around a supermassive black hole. The orbit has a period ~165 ks and a line-of-sight velocity ~13,500 km/s. This yields a lower limit for the central mass of M > 4.9x10^5 solar masses within a radius of 3.6 x 10^13 cm (2.4 A.U.). The orbit parameters are consistent with higher black hole masses, but the lack of any substantial gravitational redshift of the orbit implies an upper limit to the black hole mass of 4.5x10^7 solar masses.
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spelling oxford-uuid:1558ca37-76ac-4cb4-8dc4-5a97214ef1d02022-03-26T10:24:55ZEvidence for Orbital Motion of Material Close to the Central Black Hole of Mrk 766Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:1558ca37-76ac-4cb4-8dc4-5a97214ef1d0EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2005Turner, TMiller, LGeorge, IReeves, JTime-resolved X-ray spectroscopy has been obtained for the narrow line Seyfert galaxy Mrk766 from XMM-Newton observations. We present analysis in the energy-time plane of EPIC pn data in the 4-8 keV band with energy resolution R~50. A component of Fe Ka emission detected in the maps shows a variation of photon energy with time that appears both to be statistically significant and to be consistent with sinusoidal variation. We investigate the interpretation that there exists a component of line emission from matter in a Keplerian orbit around a supermassive black hole. The orbit has a period ~165 ks and a line-of-sight velocity ~13,500 km/s. This yields a lower limit for the central mass of M > 4.9x10^5 solar masses within a radius of 3.6 x 10^13 cm (2.4 A.U.). The orbit parameters are consistent with higher black hole masses, but the lack of any substantial gravitational redshift of the orbit implies an upper limit to the black hole mass of 4.5x10^7 solar masses.
spellingShingle Turner, T
Miller, L
George, I
Reeves, J
Evidence for Orbital Motion of Material Close to the Central Black Hole of Mrk 766
title Evidence for Orbital Motion of Material Close to the Central Black Hole of Mrk 766
title_full Evidence for Orbital Motion of Material Close to the Central Black Hole of Mrk 766
title_fullStr Evidence for Orbital Motion of Material Close to the Central Black Hole of Mrk 766
title_full_unstemmed Evidence for Orbital Motion of Material Close to the Central Black Hole of Mrk 766
title_short Evidence for Orbital Motion of Material Close to the Central Black Hole of Mrk 766
title_sort evidence for orbital motion of material close to the central black hole of mrk 766
work_keys_str_mv AT turnert evidencefororbitalmotionofmaterialclosetothecentralblackholeofmrk766
AT millerl evidencefororbitalmotionofmaterialclosetothecentralblackholeofmrk766
AT georgei evidencefororbitalmotionofmaterialclosetothecentralblackholeofmrk766
AT reevesj evidencefororbitalmotionofmaterialclosetothecentralblackholeofmrk766