Evidence for a supermassive black hole in the nucleus of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 5548

Details Evidence for a supermassive black hole in the nucleus of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 5548 Evidence for a supermassive black hole in the nucleus of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 5548

Aug 1990

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1990apj...358l..37c&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal, Part 2 - Letters (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 358, Aug. 1, 1990, p. L37-L40.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

41

Active Galactic Nuclei, Black Holes (Astronomy), Seyfert Galaxies, Carbon, Emission Spectra, Gravitational Collapse, Iue, Line Spectra, Mass Distribution

Scientific paper

The international campaign to monitor the variable Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 with the IUE has provided an extensive and well-sampled set of spectroscopic observations. These observations are used to study the response of the C IV 1550 A emission-line profile to changes in the photoionizing continuum. Near the end of the IUE campaign, the continuum flux at 1440 A and the total C IV flux dopped by factors of 2.9 and 1.8, respectively, in 16 days. The red wing of the C IV profile responded more rapidly to the sharp continuum drop than the blue wing, indicating that clouds in the inner broad-line region (BLR) are undergoing gravitational infall. These results provide direct evidence that the central engine is a supermassive object, presumably a black hole, with a mass on the order of 10 to the 7th solar masses. Analysis of the profile variations also demonstrates that excess emission in the blue wing of C IV is from a component that is physically distinct from the bulk of the BLR.

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