{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/testing-super-eddington-accretion-onto-a","title":"Testing Super-Eddington Accretion onto a Supermassive Black Hole: Reverberation Mapping of PG 1119+120","arxiv_id":"2302.09370","date":"2023-02-18","proceeding":null,"authors":["Fergus R. Donnan","Juan V. Hernández Santisteban","Keith Horne","Chen Hu","Pu Du","Yan-Rong Li","Ming Xiao","Luis C. Ho","Jesús Aceituno","Jian-Min Wang","Wei-Jian Guo","Sen Yang","Bo-Wei Jiang","Zhu-Heng Yao"],"abstract":"We measure the black hole mass and investigate the accretion flow around the local ($z=0.0502$) quasar PG 1119+120. Spectroscopic monitoring with Calar Alto provides H$\\beta$ lags and linewidths from which we estimate a black hole mass of $\\log \\left(M_{\\bullet}/\\mathrm{M}_{\\odot} \\right) = 7.0$, uncertain by $\\sim0.4$ dex. High cadence photometric monitoring over two years with the Las Cumbres Observatory provides lightcurves in 7 optical bands suitable for intensive continuum reverberation mapping. We identify variability on two timescales. Slower variations on a 100-day timescale exhibit excess flux and increased lag in the $u'$ band and are thus attributable to diffuse bound-free continuum emission from the broad line region. Faster variations that we attribute to accretion disc reprocessing lack a $u'$-band excess and have flux and delay spectra consistent with either $\\tau \\propto \\lambda^{4/3}$, as expected for a temperature structure of $T(R) \\propto R^{-3/4}$ for a thin accretion disc, or $\\tau \\propto \\lambda^{2}$ expected for a slim disc. Decomposing the flux into variable (disc) and constant (host galaxy) components, we find the disc SED to be flatter than expected with $f_{\\nu} \\sim \\rm{const}$. Modelling the SED predicts an Eddington ratio of $\\lambda_{\\rm Edd} > 1$, where the flat spectrum can be reproduced by a slim disc with little dust extinction or a thin disc which requires more dust extinction. While this accretion is super-Eddington, the geometry is still unclear, however a slim disc is expected due to the high radiation pressure at these accretion rates, and is entirely consistent with our observations.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.09370v3","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.09370v3.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"links_only","authors_date_abstract":"arXiv metadata, CC0 1.0 (https://info.arxiv.org/help/license), from the Kaggle arXiv metadata snapshot of 2026-09-12"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"testing-super-eddington-accretion-onto-a","repo_url":"https://github.com/FergusDonnan/PyROA","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":1,"mentioned_in_github":0,"framework":"none","reach":null}],"tasks":[],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"syntology_url":null,"atlas_url":null,"mcp":null,"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers"},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}