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A geometric distance to the supermassive black Hole of NGC 3783

A geometric distance to the supermassive black Hole of NGC 3783
A geometric distance to the supermassive black Hole of NGC 3783

The angular size of the broad line region (BLR) of the nearby active galactic nucleus NGC 3783 has been spatially resolved by recent observations with VLTI/GRAVITY. A reverberation mapping (RM) campaign has also recently obtained high quality light curves and measured the linear size of the BLR in a way that is complementary to the GRAVITY measurement. The size and kinematics of the BLR can be better constrained by a joint analysis that combines both GRAVITY and RM data. This, in turn, allows us to obtain the mass of the supermassive black hole in NGC 3783 with an accuracy that is about a factor of two better than that inferred from GRAVITY data alone. We derive MBH = 2.54-0.72+0.90 × 107 M⊙ . Finally, and perhaps most notably, we are able to measure a geometric distance to NGC 3783 of 39.9-11.9+14.5 Mpc. We are able to test the robustness of the BLR-based geometric distance with measurements based on the Tully-Fisher relation and other indirect methods. We find the geometric distance is consistent with other methods within their scatter. We explore the potential of BLR-based geometric distances to directly constrain the Hubble constant, H0, and identify differential phase uncertainties as the current dominant limitation to the H0 measurement precision for individual sources.

Distance scale, Galaxies: Seyfert, Galaxies: active, Galaxies: nuclei, Quasars: individual: NGC 3783
0004-6361
Amorim, A.
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Bauböck, M.
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Bentz, M. C.
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Brandner, W.
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Bolzer, M.
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Clénet, Y.
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de Zeeuw, P. T.
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Dexter, J.
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Drescher, A.
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Eckart, A.
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Eisenhauer, F.
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Förster Schreiber, N. M.
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Genzel, R.
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Hönig, S.
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Kaltenbrunner, D.
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Kishimoto, M.
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Lacour, S.
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Lutz, D.
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Millour, F.
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Netzer, H.
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Onken, C. A.
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Ott, T.
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Paumard, T.
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Perraut, K.
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Perrin, G.
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Petrucci, P. O.
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Pfuhl, O.
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Prieto, M. A.
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Rouan, D.
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Shangguan, J.
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Shimizu, T.
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Stadler, J.
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Sternberg, A.
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Straub, O.
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Straubmeier, C.
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Street, R.
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Sturm, E.
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Tacconi, L. J.
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Tristram, K. R. W.
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Vermot, P.
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von Fellenberg, S.
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Widmann, F.
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Woillez, J.
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GRAVITY Collaboration
Amorim, A.
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Bauböck, M.
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Bentz, M. C.
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Brandner, W.
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Bolzer, M.
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Clénet, Y.
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de Zeeuw, P. T.
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Dexter, J.
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Drescher, A.
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Eckart, A.
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Eisenhauer, F.
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Förster Schreiber, N. M.
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Garcia, P. J. V.
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Genzel, R.
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Gillessen, S.
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Gratadour, D.
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Hönig, S.
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Kaltenbrunner, D.
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Kishimoto, M.
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Lacour, S.
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Lutz, D.
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Millour, F.
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Netzer, H.
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Onken, C. A.
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Ott, T.
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Paumard, T.
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Perraut, K.
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Perrin, G.
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Petrucci, P. O.
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Pfuhl, O.
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Prieto, M. A.
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Rouan, D.
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Shangguan, J.
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Shimizu, T.
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Stadler, J.
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Sternberg, A.
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Straub, O.
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Straubmeier, C.
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Street, R.
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Sturm, E.
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Tacconi, L. J.
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Tristram, K. R. W.
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Vermot, P.
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von Fellenberg, S.
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Widmann, F.
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Woillez, J.
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Amorim, A., Bauböck, M., Bentz, M. C., Brandner, W., Bolzer, M., Clénet, Y., de Zeeuw, P. T., Dexter, J., Drescher, A., Eckart, A., Eisenhauer, F., Förster Schreiber, N. M., Garcia, P. J. V., Genzel, R., Gillessen, S., Gratadour, D., Hönig, S., Kaltenbrunner, D., Kishimoto, M., Lacour, S., Lutz, D., Millour, F., Netzer, H., Onken, C. A., Ott, T., Paumard, T., Perraut, K., Perrin, G., Petrucci, P. O., Pfuhl, O., Prieto, M. A., Rouan, D., Shangguan, J., Shimizu, T., Stadler, J., Sternberg, A., Straub, O., Straubmeier, C., Street, R., Sturm, E., Tacconi, L. J., Tristram, K. R. W., Vermot, P., von Fellenberg, S., Widmann, F. and Woillez, J. , GRAVITY Collaboration (2021) A geometric distance to the supermassive black Hole of NGC 3783. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 654, [A85]. (doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202141426).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The angular size of the broad line region (BLR) of the nearby active galactic nucleus NGC 3783 has been spatially resolved by recent observations with VLTI/GRAVITY. A reverberation mapping (RM) campaign has also recently obtained high quality light curves and measured the linear size of the BLR in a way that is complementary to the GRAVITY measurement. The size and kinematics of the BLR can be better constrained by a joint analysis that combines both GRAVITY and RM data. This, in turn, allows us to obtain the mass of the supermassive black hole in NGC 3783 with an accuracy that is about a factor of two better than that inferred from GRAVITY data alone. We derive MBH = 2.54-0.72+0.90 × 107 M⊙ . Finally, and perhaps most notably, we are able to measure a geometric distance to NGC 3783 of 39.9-11.9+14.5 Mpc. We are able to test the robustness of the BLR-based geometric distance with measurements based on the Tully-Fisher relation and other indirect methods. We find the geometric distance is consistent with other methods within their scatter. We explore the potential of BLR-based geometric distances to directly constrain the Hubble constant, H0, and identify differential phase uncertainties as the current dominant limitation to the H0 measurement precision for individual sources.

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e-pub ahead of print date: 15 October 2021
Published date: 15 October 2021
Additional Information: Funding Information: Acknowledgements. We thank the referees for their careful reading of the manuscript and their suggestions that have helped to improve the clarity of it. We thank Bradley Peterson for his helpful comments on this paper. J.S. would like to thank the important help from Yan-Rong Li and Yu-Yang Song-sheng to implement and test the joint analysis model. He also thanks the useful discussion from Jian-Min Wang and the IHEP group. J.D. was supported in part by NSF grant AST 1909711 and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. M.C.B. gratefully acknowledges support from the NSF through grant AST-2009230 to Georgia State University. A.A. and P.G. were supported by Fun-dação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, with grants reference UIDB/00099/2020, PTDC/FIS-AST/7002/2020 and SFRH/BSAB/142940/2018. S.H. acknowledges support from the European Research Council via Starting Grant ERC-StG-677117 DUST-IN-THE-WIND. J.S.B. acknowledges the full support from the UNAM PAPIIT project IA 101220. P.O.P. acknowledges financial support from the CNRS ≪ Programme national des hautes Énergies ≫ and from the french space agency CNES. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research made use of Astropy, (http:// www.astropy.org) a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration 2013, 2018), numpy (Van Der Walt et al. 2011), scipy (Jones et al. 2001), and matplotlib (Hunter 2007) Publisher Copyright: © GRAVITY Collaboration 2021.
Keywords: Distance scale, Galaxies: Seyfert, Galaxies: active, Galaxies: nuclei, Quasars: individual: NGC 3783

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 451867
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/451867
ISSN: 0004-6361
PURE UUID: aa7ecaf7-991a-42ed-9734-0adae22319dd

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Date deposited: 02 Nov 2021 17:41
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 14:09

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Contributors

Author: A. Amorim
Author: M. Bauböck
Author: M. C. Bentz
Author: W. Brandner
Author: M. Bolzer
Author: Y. Clénet
Author: P. T. de Zeeuw
Author: J. Dexter
Author: A. Drescher
Author: A. Eckart
Author: F. Eisenhauer
Author: N. M. Förster Schreiber
Author: P. J. V. Garcia
Author: R. Genzel
Author: S. Gillessen
Author: D. Gratadour
Author: S. Hönig
Author: D. Kaltenbrunner
Author: M. Kishimoto
Author: S. Lacour
Author: D. Lutz
Author: F. Millour
Author: H. Netzer
Author: C. A. Onken
Author: T. Ott
Author: T. Paumard
Author: K. Perraut
Author: G. Perrin
Author: P. O. Petrucci
Author: O. Pfuhl
Author: M. A. Prieto
Author: D. Rouan
Author: J. Shangguan
Author: T. Shimizu
Author: J. Stadler
Author: A. Sternberg
Author: O. Straub
Author: C. Straubmeier
Author: R. Street
Author: E. Sturm
Author: L. J. Tacconi
Author: K. R. W. Tristram
Author: P. Vermot
Author: S. von Fellenberg
Author: F. Widmann
Author: J. Woillez
Corporate Author: GRAVITY Collaboration

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