Updating quasar bolometric luminosity corrections – III. [O iii] bolometric corrections

A Pennell, JC Runnoe… - Monthly Notices of the …, 2017 - academic.oup.com
A Pennell, JC Runnoe, MS Brotherton
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2017academic.oup.com
We present quasar bolometric corrections using the narrow emission line luminosity based
on the detailed spectral energy distributions of 53 bright quasars at low to moderate redshift
(0.0345< z< 1.0002). We adopted two functional forms to calculate L iso, the bolometric
luminosity determined under the assumption of isotropy: for comparison with the literature
and, which better characterizes the data. We also explored whether 'Eigenvector 1 (EV1)',
which describes the range of quasar spectral properties and quantifies their diversity …
Abstract
We present quasar bolometric corrections using the $[{\rm O}\,\small {III}]\,\lambda 5007$ narrow emission line luminosity based on the detailed spectral energy distributions of 53 bright quasars at low to moderate redshift (0.0345 < z < 1.0002). We adopted two functional forms to calculate Liso, the bolometric luminosity determined under the assumption of isotropy: ${\rm L_{{\rm iso}}}=A\,{L_{[{\rm O}\,\small {III}]}}$ for comparison with the literature and ${\rm log(L_{{\rm iso}})}=B+C\,{\rm log}(L_{[{\rm O}\,\small {III}]})$, which better characterizes the data. We also explored whether ‘Eigenvector 1 (EV1)’, which describes the range of quasar spectral properties and quantifies their diversity, introduces scatter into the $L_{[{\rm O}\,\small {III}]}$–Liso relationship. We found that the ${[{\rm O}\,\small {III}]}$ bolometric correction can be significantly improved by adding a term including the equivalent width ratio $R_{{\rm Fe}\,\small {II}}$$\equiv\, {\rm EW}_{{\rm Fe \small {II}}}/{\rm EW}_{{\rm H}\beta }$, which is an EV1 indicator. Inclusion of $R_{{\rm Fe}\,\small {II}}$ in predicting Liso is significant at nearly the 3σ level and reduces the scatter and systematic offset of the luminosity residuals. Typically, ${[{\rm O}\,\small {III}]}$ bolometric corrections are adopted for Type 2 sources where the quasar continuum is not observed and in these cases, $R_{{\rm Fe}\,\small {II}}$ cannot be measured. We searched for an alternative measure of EV1 that could be measured in the optical spectra of Type 2 sources but were unable to identify one. Thus, the main contribution of this work is to present an improved ${[{\rm O}\,\small {III}]}$ bolometric correction based on measured bolometric luminosities and highlight the EV1 dependence of the correction in Type 1 sources.
Oxford University Press