A pilot study of AGN disk reverberation mapping at redshift z=1

LCO-2m/MuSCAT3 | 1.85N | PI - J. Hernandez Santisteban

We propose a pilot study to use the Intensive accretion Disk Reverberation Mapping (IDRM) technique to probe the radial structure of a moderately high redshift quasar, SDSS J0304 ($z=0.99$), using LCO alone. IDRM has successfully combined LCO and Swift monitoring to measure interband continuum lags to study the geometry and infer the properties of $>$10 low-redshift ($z<0.1$) AGN disks. Because this target is more than an order of magnitude more luminous, the lags should be commensurately larger, and thus should be measurable even without Swift to anchor the UV. However that has not been definitively demonstrated. If successful, this program will allow us to extend local sample measurements of the inferred disk size and temperature structure to higher mass ($\sim10^9$ M$_\odot$) and redshift. It will also provide a key proof of concept for the LSST program, which should provide comparable data on thousands of AGN.