Quasars and Massive Black Holes

Quasars and Massive Black HolesStephen Fine1OutlineWhat is a quasar

How do we study quasar black holes

Why do we study quasar black holes

What are the current difficulties in studying black holes

How can we improve on the current situationWhat is a quasar?

This is not a quasar

This is not a quasar

What is a quasar?This is not a quasarThis is a picture of a quasarThis is a spectrum of a quasar4Reverberation mapping

Broad-line regionContinuum source5

Reverberation mappingresults: Line stratificationIonising continuum sourceBroadLineRegionStrong continuumHigh-ionisation linesCIV, HeIIWeaker continuumLow-ionisation linesH, MgII6Reverberation mappingresults: Velocity structure

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Reverberation mappingresults: The rL relation8SMBH mass estimationFor a virialised system:9SMBH mass estimationReverberation mapping10SMBH mass estimationWithout reverberation mapping (single-epoch)

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SMBH mass estimation:extending to high zCant we do any better?

12Standard reverberation mapping

Cross correlate continuum and emission line light curves.

Requires 10s to 100s of observational epochs to build up the light curves.

Extremely observationally expensive.

For brighter objects the situation is worse since they have longer timescales and vary less.

To date essentially no reverberation mapping has been performed at z>0.1, M