The central region of active galactic nuclei

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The astronomical institutes in Bochum and Göttingen have performed a joint innovative observing project, partially funded by the DFG, to shed new light on the close surrounding of accreting black holes in 50 nearby active galactic nuclei (AGN). Our excellent echo mapping data exceed our expectations and allow us not only to derive the size of the broad-line region (BLR) and the host-subtracted AGN luminosity, but also to perform unprecedented studies of the kinematics and the geometry of the BLR with a spatial resolution hundredthousand times better than possible with conventional imaging techniques. Based on five sources analysed so far in more detail, we find indications that the BLRs are disk-like and seen nearly face-on. This leads to much larger AGN black hole masses than previously thought and challenges the widely adopted common black-hole/stellar-bulge mass relation for active and non-active galaxies. In addition, based on our dust torus reverberation mapping we derived a new explanation to solve for former discrepancies by means of geometrical foreshortening effects of the observed echo lags. We here ask support to continue this fascinating and extremely efficient project in order to- exploit the existing unpublished data - complement them where necessary by using own telescopes and guaranteed observing time- perform accretion disk echo mapping to find clues for smooth or stochastic accretion models- test our new methods at higher redshift. The data will be made publicly available and the results will be of high relevance for modern research of active and even non-active galaxies.