X-ray reverberation modelling of the continuum, optical/UV time-lags in quasars

Context: Extensive, multi-wavelength monitoring campaigns of nearby and higher redshift active galactic nuclei (AGN) have shown that the UV/optical variations are well correlated with time delays which increase with increasing wavelength.

Such behaviour is expected in the context of the X-ray thermal reverberation of the accretion disc in AGN.

Aims: Our main objective is to use time-lag measurements of luminous AGN and fit them with sophisticated X-ray reverberation time-lags models.

In this way we can investigate whether X-ray reverberation can indeed explain the observed continuum time lags, and whether time-lag measurements can be used to measure physical parameters such as the X-ray corona height and the spin of the black hole (BH) in these systems.

Methods: We use archival time-lag measurements for quasars from different surveys, and we compute their rest frame, mean time-lags spectrum.

We fit the data with analytical X-ray reverberation models, using $\chi^2$ statistics, and fitting for both maximal and non spinning BHs, for various colour correction values and X-ray corona heights.

Results: We found that X-ray reverberation can explain very well the observed time lags, assuming the measured BH mass, accretion rate and X-ray luminosity of the quasars in the sample.

The model agrees well with the data both for non-rotating and maximally rotating BHs, as long as the corona height is larger than $\sim 40$ gravitational radii.

This is in agreement with previous results which showed that X-ray reverberation can also explain the disc radius in micro-lensed quasars, for the same corona heights.

The corona height we measure depends on the model assumption of a perfectly flat disc.

More realistic disc models may result in lower heights for the X-ray corona.

;Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures