Optical continuum photometric reverberation mapping of the Seyfert-1 galaxy Mrk509

Abstract

Abstract We present the results of a two year optical continuum photometric reverberation mapping campaign carried out on the nucleus of the Seyfert-1 galaxy Mrk509. Specially designed narrow-band filters were used in order to mitigate the line and pseudo-continuum contamination of the signal from the broad line region, while allowing for high-accuracy flux-calibration over a large field of view. We obtained light curves with a sub-day time sampling and typical flux uncertainties of 1%. The high photometric precision allowed us to measure inter-band continuum time delays of up to ∼2 days across the optical range. The time delays are consistent with the relation τ∝λ4/3 predicted for an optically thick and geometrically thin accretion disk model. The size of the disk is, however, a factor of 1.8 larger than predictions based on the standard thin-disk theory. We argue that, for the particular case of Mrk509, a larger black hole mass due to the unknown geometry scaling factor can reconcile the difference between the observations and theory.