# Keplerian Motion of Broad-Line Region Gas as Evidence for Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei

## 1 Introduction

Since the earliest days of quasar research, supermassive black holes (SBHs) have been considered to be a likely, if not the most likely, principal agent of the activity in these sources. Evidence for the existence of SBHs in active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and indeed in non-active nuclei as well, has continued to accumulate (e.g., Kormendy & Richstone 1995). In the specific case of AGNs, probably the strongest evidence to date for SBHs has been Keplerian motions of megamaser sources in the Seyfert galaxy NGC 4258 (Miyoshi et al. 1995) and asymmetric Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission in the X-ray spectra of AGNs (e.g., Tanaka et al. 1995), though the latter is still somewhat controversial as the origin of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ emission has not been settled definitively.

The kinematics of the broad-line region (BLR) potentially provide a means of measuring the central masses of AGNs. A virial estimate of the central mass, $`Mr\sigma ^2/G`$, can be made by using the line velocity width $`\sigma `$, which is typically several thousands of kilometers per second, and the size of the emission-line region $`r`$. For this to be meaningful, we must know that the BLR gas motions are dominated by gravity, and we must have some reliable estimate of the BLR size. The size of the BLR can be measured by reverberation mapping (Blandford & McKee 1982), and this has been done for more than two dozen AGNs. Whether or not the broad emission-line widths actually reflect virial motion is still somewhat problematic: while the relative response time scales for the blueshifted and redshifted wings of the lines reveal no strong signature of outflow, there are still viable models with non-gravatitionally driven cloud motions. However, if the kinematics of the BLR can be proven to be gravitationally dominated, then the BLR provides an even more definitive demonstration of the existence of SBHs than megamaser kinematics because the BLR is more than two orders of magnitude closer to the central source than the megamaser sources. Recent investigations of AGN virial masses estimates based on BLR sizes have been quite promising (e.g., Wandel 1997; Laor 1998) and suggest that this method ought to be pursued.

In this Letter, we argue that the broad emission-line variability data on one of the best-studied AGNs, the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548, demonstrates that the BLR kinematics are Keplerian, i.e., that the emission-line cloud velocities are dominated by a central mass of order $`7\times 10^7`$$`M_{}`$ within the inner few light days ($`r\stackrel{<}{}5\times 10^{15}`$ cm). We believe that this strongly supports the hypothesis that SBHs reside in the nuclei of active galaxies.

## 2 Methodology

Measurement of virial masses from emission lines requires (1) determination of the BLR size, (2) measurement of the emission-line velocity dispersion, and (3) a demonstration that the kinematics are gravitationally dominated. A correlation between the BLR size and line-width of the form $`r\sigma ^2`$ is consistent with a wide variety of gravitationally dominated kinematics. It thus provides good evidence for such a dynamical scenario, although alternative pictures which contrive to produce a similar result cannot be ruled out. Indeed, the absence of such a relationship has been regarded as the missing item in AGN SBH measurements (Richstone et al. 1998).

For gravitationally dominated dynamics, the size–line-width relationship must hold for all lines at all times. To test this, we consider the case of NGC 5548, which has been the subject of extensive UV and optical monitoring campaigns by the International AGN Watch consortium<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Information about the International AGN Watch and copies of published data can be obtained on the World-Wide Web at URL http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/$``$agnwatch/. (Alloin et al. 1994) for more than ten years. The data are from UV monitoring programs undertaken with the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) in 1989 (Clavel et al. 1991) and with IUE and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 1993 (Korista et al. 1995), plus ground-based spectroscopy from 1989 to 1996 (Peterson et al. 1999 and references therein). We consider the response of a variety of lines in two separate observing seasons (1989 and 1993) and the response of H$`\beta `$ over an eight-year period.

Cross-correlation of the continuum and emission-line light curves yields a time delay or “lag” that is interpreted as the light-travel time across the BLR. Specifically, the centroid of the cross-correlation function (CCF) $`\tau _{\mathrm{cent}}`$ times the signal propagation speed $`c`$ is the responsivity-weighted mean radius of the BLR for that particular emission line (Koratkar & Gaskell 1991).

We have measured $`\tau _{\mathrm{cent}}`$ for various emission lines using light curves of NGC 5548 in the AGN Watch data base and the interpolation cross-correlation method as described by White & Peterson (1994). The UV measurements for 1989 are the GEX values from Clavel et al. (1991). The UV measurements for 1993 are taken from Tables 12–14 and 16–17 of Korista et al. (1995). The optical data for 1989–1993 are from Wanders & Peterson (1996) and from Peterson et al. (1999) for 1994–1996. Uncertainties in these values were determined as described by Peterson et al. (1998b). The results are given in Table 1, in which columns (1) and (2) give the epoch of the observations and the emission line, respectively. Column (3) gives the lag $`\tau _{\mathrm{cent}}`$ and its associated uncertainties.

Emission-line widths are not simple to measure on account of contamination by emission from the narrow-line region, and in some cases, contamination from other broad lines. We have circumvented this problem by using a large number of individual spectra to compute mean and root-mean-square (rms) spectra, and we measure the width of the emission features in the rms spectrum. The advantage of this approach is that constant or slowly varying components of the spectrum do not appear in the rms spectrum, and the emission features in the rms spectrum accurately represent the parts of the emission line that are varying, and for which the time delays are measured (Peterson et al. 1998a). This technique requires very homogeneous spectra: for the 1989 UV spectrum, we used the GEX-extracted SWP spectra. For the 1993 UV spectrum, we used the HST FOS spectra, excluding those labeled “dropouts” by Korista et al. (1995) which were not optimally centered in the FOS aperture. For the optical spectra through 1993, we used the homogeneous subset analyzed by Wanders & Peterson (1996), and a similar subset for 1994–1996. In each rms spectrum, we determined the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of each measurable line, with a range of uncertainty estimated by the highest and lowest plausible settings of the underlying continuum. The line widths are given as line-of-sight Doppler widths in kilometers per second in column (4) of Table 1.

Each emission line provides an independent measurement of the virial mass of the AGN in NGC 5548 by combining the emission-line lag with its Doppler width in the rms spectrum. Column (5) of Table 1 gives a virial mass estimate $`M=fr_{\mathrm{BLR}}\sigma _{\mathrm{rms}}^2/G`$ for each line, where $`\sigma _{\mathrm{rms}}=\sqrt{3}V_{\text{FWHM}}/2`$ (Netzer 1990) and $`r_{\mathrm{BLR}}=c\tau _{\mathrm{cent}}`$. The factor $`f`$ depends on the details of the geometry, kinematics, and orientation of the BLR, as well as the emission-line responsivity of the individual clouds, and is expected to be of order unity. Uncertainty in this factor limits the accuracy of our mass estimate to about an order of magnitude (see §3). Neglecting the systematic uncertainty in $`f`$, the unweighted mean of all these mass estimates is $`6.8(\pm 2.1)\times 10^7`$$`M_{}`$. To within the quoted uncertainties, all of the mass measurements are consistent. The large systematic uncertainty should not obscure the key result, namely that the quantity $`r_{\mathrm{BLR}}\sigma _{\mathrm{rms}}^2/G`$ is constant and argues strongly for a central mass of order $`7\times 10^7`$$`M_{}`$.

In Fig. 1, we show the measured emission-line lag $`\tau _{\mathrm{cent}}`$, plotted as a function of the width of the line in the rms spectrum for various broad emission lines in NGC 5548. Within the measurement uncertainties, all the lines yield identical values for the central mass. A weighted fit to the relationship $`\mathrm{log}(\tau _{\mathrm{cent}})=a+b\mathrm{log}(V_{\text{FWHM}})`$ yields $`b=1.96\pm 0.18`$, consistent with the expected value $`b=2`$, although the somewhat high reduced $`\chi _\nu ^2`$ value of 1.70 (compared with $`\chi _\nu ^2=2.14`$ for a forced $`b=2`$ fit as shown in the figure) suggests that there may be additional sources of scatter in this relationship beyond random error.

If our virial hypothesis is indeed correct, we should measure the same mass using independent data obtained at different times. The H$`\beta `$ emission line in NGC 5548 is the only line for which reverberation measurements have been made for multiple epochs. In Fig. 2a, we show the measured H$`\beta `$ lag as a function of the width of the H$`\beta `$ line in the rms spectrum for the six years listed in Table 1. The relationship is shallower than that seen in the multiple-line data shown in Fig. 1 ($`b=0.72\pm 0.29`$ with $`\chi _\nu ^2=0.79`$), and indeed is poorly fit with the expected virial slope (for the $`b=2`$ fit shown in the figure, $`\chi _\nu ^2=3.71`$, although more than 50% of the contribution to $`\chi _\nu ^2`$ is due to the single data point from 1996). Note that data from two years, 1993 and 1995, have not been included in this plot because the rms spectra for these two years have a strong double-peaked structure that we are unable to account for at present. We also note that a rather better relationship between the H$`\beta `$ time lag and rms line width is found if we use the CCF peak rather than the centroid for the BLR size, as shown in Fig. 2b ($`b=1.47\pm 0.21`$ with $`\chi _\nu ^2=0.59`$, and for the $`b=2`$ fit shown in the figure, $`\chi _\nu ^2=1.58`$). The CCF centroid represents the responsivity-weighted mean radius of the H$`\beta `$ line-emitting region, but the CCF peak has no similarly obvious interpretation, though in some geometries the cross-correlation peak is a probe of the emission-line gas closest to the central source. In any case, the virial mass we infer from the mean of the H$`\beta `$ data is the same within the uncertainties regardless of whether the CCF centroid ($`7.3(\pm 2.0)\times 10^7`$$`M_{}`$) or peak ($`6.8(\pm 1.0)\times 10^7`$$`M_{}`$) is used to infer the BLR size. There are a number of possible reasons for the large $`\chi ^2`$ values for the virial fits; it is important to remember that both the lag and line width are dynamic quantities that are dependent on the mean continuum flux, which can change significantly over the course of an observing season. We attempted to test this by isolating individual “events” in the light curves and repeating the analysis. Unfortunately, the relatively few spectra in each event significantly degraded the quality of both the lag and line-width measurements and thus proved to be unenlightening.

A diagram similar to our Fig. 1 was published by Krolik et al. (1991) for NGC 5548. We believe that our improved treatment, plus additional data, makes the case more compelling primarily because we measured the broad-line widths from the variable part of the spectrum only (i.e., the rms spectrum) rather than by multiple-component fitting of the broad-line profiles. Also, we included only lines for which we could determine both accurate lags and line widths in the rms spectra, thus excluding Ly$`\alpha `$$`\lambda 1215`$ because of contamination by geocoronal Ly$`\alpha `$ in the rms spectrum, N v$`\lambda 1240`$ because it is weak and badly blended with Ly$`\alpha `$, and O i$`\lambda 1304`$ on account of its low contrast in the rms spectrum. We excluded Mg ii$`\lambda 2798`$ because of its poorly defined time lag — the response of this line is long enough for aliasing to be a problem. Finally, we also included optical lines (H$`\beta `$ and He ii$`\lambda 4686`$) not included by Krolik et al., plus additional UV measurements from the 1993 monitoring campaign.

An obvious question to ask is whether or not it is possible to directly determine the BLR kinematics by differential time delays between various parts of emission lines (e.g., in the case of purely radial infall, the redshifted side of an emission line should respond to continuum changes before the blueshifted side). In general, cross-correlations of emission-line fluxes in restricted Doppler-velocity ranges have failed to yield significant time lags in the several AGNs tested to date (e.g., Korista et al. 1995), consistent with, although not proving, the virial hypothesis.

## 3 Discussion

We have shown that the emission-line time-lag/velocity-width relationship argues very strongly for an SBH of mass $`7\times 10^7`$$`M_{}`$ in the nucleus of NGC 5548. The accuracy of this determination is limited by unknown systematics involving the geometry, kinematics, and line reprocessing physics of the BLR. As a simple illustration, we consider C iv$`\lambda 1549`$ line emission from a BLR consisting of clouds in a Keplerian disk with radial responsivity proportional to $`r^{2.5}`$ (which is steep enough to make the results fairly insensitive to the outer radius of the disk) and inner radius $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=3`$ lt–days. A relatively low central mass ($`5\times 10^6`$$`M_{}`$) with high inclination ($`i=90`$<sup>o</sup>) disk and asymmetric line emission can fit the 1989 C iv results in Table 1. At the other extreme, a larger mass ($`1.1\times 10^8`$$`M_{}`$) is required for a lower inclination ($`i=20`$<sup>o</sup>) and isotropic line emission. For further comparison, the specific model of Wanders et al. (1995), based on anisotropically illuminated clouds in randomly inclined Keplerian orbits, requires $`M=3.8\times 10^7`$$`M_{}`$, and extrapolation to the BLR of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ disk model of Nandra et al. (1997) requires $`M=3.4\times 10^7`$$`M_{}`$.

As shown by Peterson et al. (1999), the H$`\beta `$ emission-line lag varies with continuum flux, though as with the results discussed here, the correlation shows considerable scatter, probably because of the dynamic nature of the quantities being measured. But it seems clear that as the continuum luminosity increases, greater response is seen from gas at larger distances from the central source. We argue here that this also results in a change in the emission-line width; as the response becomes dominated by gas further away from the central source, the Doppler width of the responding line becomes narrower. This shows that the different widths of various emission lines is related to the radial distribution of the line-emitting gas — high-ionization lines arise at small distances and have large widths, and low-ionization lines arise primarily at larger radii and are thus narrower.

While this accounts for some important characteristics of AGN emission lines and their variability, it is nevertheless clear that this is not the entire story; there is still scatter in the relationships that is unaccounted for by these correlations, and their are other phenomena that are not accounted for in this simple interpretation. For example, for central masses as large as reported here, observable relative shifts in the positions of the emission lines are expected from differential gravitational redshifts. The gravitational redshift for each line in NGC 5548 is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }V=\frac{GM}{cr_{\mathrm{BLR}}}\frac{1160\text{km s}\text{-1}}{r_{\mathrm{BLR}}\text{(light days)}}.$$
(1)   
This clearly predicts that that high-ionization lines ought to be redshifted relative to the low-ionization lines, when in fact the opposite is observed in higher-luminosity objects (Gaskell 1982; Wilkes 1984). However, the gravitational redshift in NGC 5548 should apply to the variable component of the emission line only and would be sufficiently small to be unobservable in our rms spectra. The occasional appearance of double-peaked rms profiles is yet another complication. As noted earlier, in two of the eight years of optical data on NGC 5548, the H$`\beta `$ profile in the rms spectrum is strongly double-peaked. We do not see an obvious explanation for why the emission line should be single-peaked on some occasions and double-peaked on others.

## 4 Summary

We have shown that in the case of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 emission-line variability data yield a consistent virial mass estimate $`M7\times 10^7`$$`M_{}`$, though systematic uncertainties about the BLR geometry, kinematics, and line-reprocessing physics limit the accuracy of the mass determination to about an order of magnitude. Data on multiple emission lines spanning a factor of ten or more in distance from the central source shows the $`r_{\mathrm{BLR}}V_{\text{FWHM}}^2`$ correlation expected for virialized BLR motions. The time delay of H$`\beta `$ emission is known to vary by at least a factor of two over a decade (Peterson et al. 1999), and we show here that the line-width variations are anticorrelated with the time-delay variations. The central mass is concentrated inside a few light days, which corresponds to about 250 Schwarzschild radii ($`R_\mathrm{S}=2GM/c^2`$) for the mass we infer, which argues very strongly for the existence of an SBH in NGC 5548.

BMP is grateful for support of this work by the National Science Foundation and NASA through grants AST–9420080 and NAG5–8397, respectively, to The Ohio State University. AW wishes to acknowledge the hospitality of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA during this work. We thank K.T. Korista, M.A. Malkan, P.S. Osmer, R.W. Pogge, J.C. Shields, and B.J. Wilkes for critical reading of the draft manuscript and A. Gould for helpful advice.