Litcius/Paper detail

Estimators of Bolometric Luminosity and Black Hole Mass with Mid-infrared Continuum Luminosities for Dust-obscured Quasars: Prevalence of Dust-obscured SDSS Quasars

Dohyeong Kim, Myungshin Im, Minjin Kim, Yongjung Kim, Suhyun Shin, Hyunjin Shim, Hyunmi Song

2023The Astrophysical Journal15 citationsDOIOpen Access PDF

Abstract

Abstract We present bolometric luminosity ( L bol ) and black hole (BH) mass ( M BH ) estimators based on mid-infrared (MIR) continuum luminosity (hereafter, L MIR ) that are measured from infrared (IR) photometric data. The L MIR -based estimators are relatively immune from dust extinction effects, hence they can be used for dust-obscured quasars. To derive the L bol and M BH estimators, we use unobscured quasars selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasar catalog, which have wide ranges of L bol (10 44.62 –10 46.16 erg s −1 ) and M BH (10 7.14 –10 9.69 M ⊙ ). We find empirical relations between (i) continuum luminosity at 5100 Å (hereafter, L5100) and L MIR ; (ii) L bol and L MIR . Using these relations, we derive the L MIR -based L bol and M BH estimators. We find that our estimators allow the determination of L bol and M BH at an accuracy of ∼0.2 dex against the fiducial estimates based on the optical properties of the unobscured quasars. We apply the L MIR -based estimators to SDSS quasars at z ≲ 0.5 including obscured ones. The ratios of L bol from the L MIR -based estimators to those from the optical luminosity-based estimators become larger with the amount of the dust extinction, and a non-negligible fraction (∼15%) of the SDSS quasars exhibits ratios greater than 1.5. This result suggests that dust extinction can significantly affect physical parameter derivations even for SDSS quasars, and that dust extinction needs to be carefully taken into account when deriving quasar properties.

Topics & Concepts

QuasarAstrophysicsPhysicsEstimatorLuminosityExtinction (optical mineralogy)SkyBlack hole (networking)AstronomyStatisticsGalaxyMathematicsOpticsRouting protocolLink-state routing protocolComputer scienceRouting (electronic design automation)Computer networkGalaxies: Formation, Evolution, PhenomenaAstrophysical Phenomena and ObservationsAdaptive optics and wavefront sensing