Weighing Super-Massive Black Holes with Narrow Fe K$\alpha$ Line
It has been suggested that the narrow cores of the Fe Kα emission lines in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) are likely produced in the torus, the inner radius of which can be measured by observing the lag time between the V and K band flux variations. In this paper, we compare the virial products of the infrared time lags, and the narrow Fe Kα widths for 10 type 1 AGNs, with the black hole masses from other techniques. We found the narrow Fe Kα line width is in average 2.6 −0.4 times broader than expected, assuming an isotropic velocity distribution of the torus at the distance measured by the infrared lags. We propose the thick disk model of the torus may explain the observed larger line width. Another possibility is the contamination by emission from the broad line region or the outer accretion disk. Alternatively, the narrow iron line might originate from the inner most part of the obscuring torus within the sublimation radius, while the infrared emission may be from the outer cooler part. We note the correlations between the black hole masses based on this new technique and those based on other known techniques are statistically insignificant. We argue that this could be attributed to the small sample size and the very large uncertainties in the measurements of iron K line widths. The next generation of X-ray observatories could help verify the origin of the narrow iron Kα line and the reliability of this new technique. Subject headings: black hole physics – galaxies: active – galaxies: nuclei – galaxies: Seyfert – X-rays: galaxies – infrared: galaxies

title: Polarization of Quasars: Rotated and Funnel-shaped Outflow
abstract: Polarization is a useful probe to investigate the geometries and dynamics of outflow in BAL QSOs. We perform a Monte-Carlo simulation to calculate the polarization produced by resonant and electron scattering in BALR. We find: 1)A rotated and funnel-shaped outflow is preferred to explain many observed polarization features. 2)The resonant scattering can contribute a significant part of NV emission line in some QSOs.

title: Relation between Starlight and Nebular Emission Lines of Star-Forming Galaxies
abstract: We present an exercise that intends to establish a relationship between the strength of nebular emission lines and optical stellar features in the spectrum of a galaxy. After accurately subtracting the stellar continuum and the underlying stellar absorption, we made reliable measurements of the emission lines of all the galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 2 (SDSS DR2). More than 4000 star-forming galaxies with high S/N ratio of both the stellar spectrum and the emission lines are selected. These galaxy spectra are fitted with the 10 PCs of Yip et al., after all the emission line regions have been filtered out. We find that the flux of hydrogen Balmer emission lines, H α and H β can be well recovered from the PCs, while the metal lines are not well reproduced. The fluxes of H α and H β measured from the PC-reconstructed spectra and from the observed spectra agree well with an rms scatter of only ~0.1 dex. This result suggests that, with moderate spectral resolution and S/N ratio, the optical stellar spectrum of a galaxy can serve as an indicator of star formation rate.

title: The 172 ks Chandra Exposure of the LALA Bootes Field: X-Ray Source Catalog
abstract: We present an analysis of a deep, 172 ks Chandra observation of the Large Area Lyman Alpha survey (LALA) Bootes field, obtained with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS-I) on board the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This is one of the deepest Chandra images of the extragalactic sky; only the 2 Ms Chandra Deep Field North (CDF-N) and 1 Ms Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S) are substantially deeper. In this paper we present the X-ray source catalog obtained from this image, along with an analysis of source counts and optical identifications. The X-ray image is composed of two individual observations obtained in 2002 and reaches 0.5–2.0 and 2.0–10.0 keV flux limits of 1.5 × 10-16 and 1.0 × 10-15 ergs cm-2 s-1, respectively, for point sources near the aim point. A total of 168 X-ray sources were detected: 160 in the 0.5–7.0 keV band, 132 in the 0.5–2.0 keV band, and 111 in the 2.0–7.0 keV band. The X-ray source counts were derived and compared with those from other Chandra deep surveys; the hard X-ray source density of the LALA Bootes field is 33% higher than that of CDF-S at the flux level of 2.0 × 10-15 ergs cm-2 s-1, confirming the field-to-field variances of the hard-band source counts reported by previous studies. The deep exposure resolves 72% of the 2.0–10.0 keV X-ray background. Our primary optical data are R-band imaging from the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey (NDWFS), with a limiting magnitude of R = 25.7 (Vega, 3 σ, and 4'' diameter aperture). We have found optical counterparts for 152 of the 168 Chandra sources (90%); 144 of these are detected in the R-band image, and eight have optical counterparts in other bands (either BW, V, I, or z'). Among the R-band nondetected sources, not more than 11 of them can possibly be at z > 5, based on the hardness ratios of their X-ray emission and nondetections in bluer bands (BW, V). The majority (~76%) of the X-ray sources are found to have log(fX/fR) within 0.0 ± 1; these are believed to be AGNs. Most of the X-ray–faint/optically bright sources [log(fX/fR) 1.0], which are harder in X-ray and are probably obscured AGNs.

title: Polar outflows in six broad absorption line quasars
abstract: Using radio observations by FIRST and NVSS, we build a sample of 151 radio-variable quasars selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 3 (SDSS DR3). Six (and probably another two) of these objects are classified as broad absorption line (BAL) quasars and show radio flux variations of a few tens of percent within 1.5-5 yr. Such large amplitudes of variations imply brightness temperatures much higher than the inverse Compton limits (10(12) K) in all these BAL quasars, suggesting the presence of relativistic jets beaming toward the observer. The angles between the outflow and the jet are constrained to be less than similar to 20 degrees. Such BAL quasars with polar outflows are beyond the simple unification models of BAL and non-BAL quasars, which hypothesize BAL quasars as otherwise normal quasars seen nearly edge-on.

title: Partially obscured quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Early Data Release
abstract: We have compiled a sample of 21 low redshift (z . 0.3), luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) with large Balmer decrements (Hα/Hβ > 7) using the galaxy and QSO catalogs of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Early Data Release. Using this sample we attempt to determine the fraction of quasars with large internal absorption. We find that these AGN have Strong [O III] λ5007 and broad Hα emission, and that starlight dominates the spectra in the blue band, suggesting that these objects are heavily reddened. Their narrow emission line ratios are similar to those of Seyfert 2 galaxies, yet the average [O III] λ5007 emission is ∼10 times more luminous. Applying the empirical relation between the optical continuum and the Balmer line luminosity for blue quasars, we find that the intrinsic luminosities of these 21 objects are in the range for quasars. We propose that they are obscured, intermediate type quasars analogous to type 1.8 and 1.9 Seyfert galaxies. The ratio of these optically selected, intermediate type quasars to type 1 quasars are found to be around 1, similar to that for local Seyfert galaxies. Preliminary study indicates that most of these quasars are hosted in early type galaxies.  quasars: general — galaxies: nuclei

title: Profile of an emission line from relativistic outflows around a black hole
abstract: Recent observations show strong evidence for the presence of Doppler-shifted emission lines in the spectrum of both black hole candidates and active galactic nuclei. These lines are likely to originate from relativistic outflows (or jets) in the vicinity of the central black: hole. Consequently, the profile of such a line should be distorted by strong gravitational effects near the black hole, as well as special relativistic effects. In this paper, we present results from a detailed study on how each process affects the observed line profile. We found that the profile is sensitive to the intrinsic properties of the jets (Lorentz factor, velocity profile, and emissivity law), as well as to the spin of the black hole and the viewing angle (with respect to the axis of the jets). More specifically, in the case of approaching jets, an intrinsically narrow line (blueshifted) is seen as simply broadened at small viewing angles, but it shows a doubly peaked profile at large viewing angles for extreme Kerr black holes (due to the combination of gravitational focusing and Doppler effects); the profile is always singly peaked for Schwarzschild black holes. For receding jets, however, the line profile becomes quite complicated owing to complicated photon trajectories. To facilitate comparison with observations, we searched a large parameter space to derive representative line profiles. We show the results and discuss how to use emission lines as a potential tool for probing the inner region of a black hole jet system.

title: The extension of self-avoiding random walk series in two dimensions
abstract: The authors have extended the enumeration of square lattice and triangular lattice self-avoiding walks and their end-to-end distance by two terms. They have also calculated 17 terms in the series for the resistance of SAWs with bridges on the square lattice. Analysis of the new data allows the connective constants to be more accurately estimated, and affirms the values gamma =43/32 and v=3/4, and 1+ gamma for the exponent of the resistance series.

title: Charged particle multiplicities in pp interactions at $ \sqrt {s} = 0.9 $, 2.36, and 7 TeV
abstract: Measurements of primary charged hadron multiplicity distributions are presented for non-single-diffractive events in proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of $ \sqrt {s} = 0.9 $, 2.36, and 7 TeV, in five pseudorapidity ranges from |η| < 0.5 to |η| < 2.4. The data were collected with the minimum-bias trigger of the CMS experiment during the LHC commissioning runs in 2009 and the 7 TeV run in 2010. The multiplicity distribution at $ \sqrt {s} = 0.9\;{\text{TeV}} $ is in agreement with previous measurements. At higher energies the increase of the mean multiplicity with $ \sqrt {s} $ is underestimated by most event generators. The average transverse momentum as a function of the multiplicity is also presented. The measurement of higher-order moments of the multiplicity distribution confirms the violation of Koba-Nielsen-Olesen scaling that has been observed at lower energies.

title: The Cores of the Fe Kα Lines in Active Galactic Nuclei: An Extended Chandra High Energy Grating Sample
abstract: We extend the study of the core of the Fe K{alpha} emission line at {approx}6.4 keV in Seyfert galaxies reported by Yaqoob and Padmanabhan using a larger sample observed by the Chandra high-energy grating (HEG). The sample consists of 82 observations of 36 unique sources with z < 0.3. Whilst heavily obscured active galactic nuclei are excluded from the sample, these data offer some of the highest precision measurements of the peak energy of the Fe K{alpha} line, and the highest spectral resolution measurements of the width of the core of the line in unobscured and moderately obscured (N {sub H} < 10{sup 23} cm{sup -2}) Seyfert galaxies to date. From an empirical and uniform analysis, we present measurements of the Fe K{alpha} line centroid energy, flux, equivalent width (EW), and intrinsic width (FWHM). The Fe K{alpha} line is detected in 33 sources, and its centroid energy is constrained in 32 sources. In 27 sources, the statistical quality of the data is good enough to yield measurements of the FWHM. We find that the distribution in the line centroid energy is strongly peaked around the value for neutral Fe, with over 80% of the observations giving values in the rangemore » 6.38-6.43 keV. Including statistical errors, 30 out of 32 sources ({approx}94%) have a line centroid energy in the range 6.35-6.47 keV. The mean EW, among the observations in which a non-zero lower limit could be measured, was 53 {+-} 3 eV. The mean FWHM from the subsample of 27 sources was 2060 {+-} 230 km s{sup -1}. The mean EW and FWHM are somewhat higher when multiple observations for a given source are averaged. From a comparison with the H{beta} optical emission-line widths (or, for one source, Br{alpha}), we find that there is no universal location of the Fe K{alpha} line-emitting region relative to the optical broad-line region (BLR). In general, a given source may have contributions to the Fe K{alpha} line flux from parsec-scale distances from the putative black hole, down to matter a factor {approx}2 closer to the black hole than the BLR. We confirm the presence of the X-ray Baldwin effect, an anti-correlation between the Fe K{alpha} line EW and X-ray continuum luminosity. The HEG data have enabled isolation of this effect to the narrow core of the Fe K{alpha} line.« less

title: Hadronic mass moments in inclusive semileptonic B meson decays.
abstract: We have measured the first and second moments of the hadronic mass-squared distribution in B-->X(c)l nu, for P(lepton)>1.5 GeV/c. We find = 0.251+/-0.066 GeV(2), <(M(2)(X)-)(2)> = 0.576+/-0.170 GeV(4), where M macro(D) is the spin-averaged D meson mass. From that first moment and the first moment of the photon energy spectrum in b-->s gamma, we find the heavy quark effective theory parameter lambda(1) (in the modified minimal subtraction renormalization scheme, to order 1/M(3)(B) and beta(0)alpha(2)(s)) to be -0.24+/-0.11 GeV(2). Using these first moments and the B semileptonic width, and assuming parton-hadron duality, we obtain absolute value of V(cb) = 0.0404+/-0.0013.