Revisiting the continuum reverberation lags in the AGN PKS 0558−504. Issue 2 (29th July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: González-Buitrago, D H; Santisteban, J V Hernández; Barth, A J; Jimenez-Bailón, E; Li, Yan-Rong; García-Díaz, Ma T; Vargas, A Lopez; Herrera-Endoqui, M
• Is Part Of: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Volume 515:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 2890
• Page End: 2900
• Publication Date: 2022-07-29
• Subjects: accretion, accretion disc -- galaxies: active -- galaxies: individual: PKS 0558 − 504; Astronomy -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stac1945
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0035-8711

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We present a revised analysis of the photometric reverberation mapping campaign of the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy PKS 0558 − 504 carried out with the Swift Observatory during 2008–2010. Previously, Gliozzi et al. (2013) found using the Discrete Correlation Function (DCF) method that the short-wavelength continuum variations lagged behind variations at longer wavelengths, the opposite of the trend expected for thermal reprocessing of X-rays by the accretion disc, and they interpreted their results as evidence against the reprocessing model. We carried out new DCF measurements that demonstrate that the inverted lag-wavelength relationship found by Gliozzi et al. resulted from their having interchanged the order of the driving and responding light curves when measuring the lags. To determine the inter-band lags and uncertainties more accurately, we carried out new measurements with four independent methods. These give consistent results showing time delays increasing as a function of wavelength, as expected for the disc reprocessing scenario. The slope of the re-analysed delay spectrum appears to be roughly compatible with the predicted τ ∝ λ 4/3 relationship for reprocessing by an optically thick and geometrically thin accretion disc, although the data points exhibit a large scatter about the fitted power-law trend.