Probing the Central Engine of Active Galactic Nuclei

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AST-0604066PetersonThis project will explore the very inner structure of active galactic nuclei. It will (a) measure the masses of the central black holes and (b) determine the structure and kinematics of the broad emission-line region. This will be accomplished with an aggressive 90-night reverberation-mapping program designed to recover high-fidelity velocity-delay maps of the broad-line region in 6 to 8 bright Seyfert 1 galaxies. A complementary program of spectropolarimetry will be used as an independent probe of the broad-line region structure. This study will lead to a better understanding of the uncertainties in measurement of black hole masses by reverberation techniques, and to an understanding of accretion flows around super-massive black holes. Successful recovery of a velocity-delay map via reverberation will provide the strongest constraints ever on the structure and kinematics of the broad emission-line region, and could lead to a unique solution. Even if that ambition is not realized, these observations will certainly improve the measurements in several sources whose black hole masses are now poorly known.Several graduate students at multiple institutions will be trained as observers. The project fosters international collaboration through the reverberation program (United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Japan), the host galaxy velocity-dispersion program (Germany and Canada), and the spectropolarimetry program (United Kingdom and Chile). The reverberation program shows how smaller telescopes can still perform high impact science.