- Barth, Aaron J;
- Pancoast, Anna;
- Thorman, Shawn J;
- Bennert, Vardha N;
- Sand, David J;
- Li, Weidong;
- Canalizo, Gabriela;
- Filippenko, Alexei V;
- Gates, Elinor L;
- Greene, Jenny E;
- Malkan, Matthew A;
- Stern, Daniel;
- Treu, Tommaso;
- Woo, Jong-Hak;
- Assef, Roberto J;
- Bae, Hyun-Jin;
- Brewer, Brendon J;
- Buehler, Tabitha;
- Cenko, S Bradley;
- Clubb, Kelsey I;
- Cooper, Michael C;
- Diamond-Stanic, Aleksandar M;
- Hiner, Kyle D;
- Hönig, Sebastian F;
- Joner, Michael D;
- Kandrashoff, Michael T;
- Laney, C David;
- Lazarova, Mariana S;
- Nierenberg, AM;
- Park, Dawoo;
- Silverman, Jeffrey M;
- Son, Donghoon;
- Sonnenfeld, Alessandro;
- Tollerud, Erik J;
- Walsh, Jonelle L;
- Walters, Richard;
- da Silva, Robert L;
- Fumagalli, Michele;
- Gregg, Michael D;
- Harris, Chelsea E;
- Hsiao, Eric Y;
- Lee, Jeffrey;
- Lopez, Liliana;
- Rex, Jacob;
- Suzuki, Nao;
- Trump, Jonathan R;
- Tytler, David;
- Worseck, Gábor;
- Yesuf, Hassen M
The Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2011 observing campaign was carried out over the course of 11 weeks in spring 2011. Here we present the first results from this program, a measurement of the broad-line reverberation lag in the Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk50. Combining our data with supplemental observations obtained prior to the start of the main observing campaign, our data set covers a total duration of 4.5 months. During this time, Mrk50 was highly variable, exhibiting a maximum variability amplitude of a factor of 4 in the U-band continuum and a factor of ∼2 in the Hβ line. Using standard cross-correlation techniques, we find that Hβ and Hγ lag the V-band continuum by τcen = 10.64+0.82- 0.93 and 8.43+1.30- 1.28days, respectively, while the lag of He II λ4686 is unresolved. The Hβ line exhibits a symmetric velocity-resolved reverberation signature with shorter lags in the high-velocity wings than in the line core, consistent with an origin in a broad-line region (BLR) dominated by orbital motion rather than infall or outflow. Assuming a virial normalization factor of f = 5.25, the virial estimate of the black hole mass is (3.2 ± 0.5) × 107 M ⊙. These observations demonstrate that Mrk50 is among the most promising nearby active galaxies for detailed investigations of BLR structure and dynamics. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.