Andrea Marinucci, Stefano Bianchi, Fabrizio Nicastro, Giorgio Matt, Andy D. Goulding
In the past few years more and more pieces of evidence have been presented
for a revision of the widely accepted Unified Model of Active Galactic Nuclei.
A model based solely on orientation cannot explain all the observed
phenomenology. In the following, we will present evidence that accretion rate
is also a key parameter for the presence of Hidden Broad Line Regions in
Seyfert 2 galaxies. Our sample consists of 21 sources with polarized Hidden
Broad Lines and 18 sources without Hidden Broad Lines. We use stellar velocity
dispersions from several studies on the CaII and Mg b triplets in Seyfert 2
galaxies, to estimate the mass of the central black holes via the
Mbh-{\sigma}\ast relation. The ratio between the bolometric luminosity, derived
from the intrinsic (i.e. unabsorbed) X-ray luminosity, and the Eddington
luminosity is a measure of the rate at which matter accretes onto the central
supermassive black hole. A separation between Compton-thin HBLR and non-HBLR
sources is clear, both in accretion rate (log Lbol/LEdd = -1.9) and in
luminosity (log Lbol = 43.90). When, properly luminosity-corrected,
Compton-thick sources are included, the separation between HBLR and non-HBLR is
less sharp but no HBLR source falls below the Eddington ratio threshold. We
speculate that non-HBLR Compton-thick sources with accretion rate higher than
the threshold, do possess a BLR, but something, probably related to their heavy
absorption, is preventing us from observing it even in polarized light. Our
results for Compton-thin sources support theoretical expectations. In a model
presented by Nicastro (2000), the presence of broad emission lines is
intrinsically connected with disk instabilities occuring in proximity of a
transition radius, which is a function of the accretion rate, becoming smaller
than the innermost stable orbit for very low accretion rates and therefore
luminosities.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.5397
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