Applications of Gravitational Lensing: Revealing the Structure of Quasars

by Dr. Carina Fian

Hctpa/Tau

at Astrophysics and Cosmology Seminar

Wed, 03 Mar 2021, 11:10
Sacta-Rashi Building for Physics (54), room 207

Abstract

There is no chance of spatially resolving the inner parts of active
galactic nuclei (AGNs) with current optical telescopes, therefore
observations of gravitationally lensed quasars and galaxies
provide a powerful alternative to study their inner parts and
distribution of mass. Compact objects such as stars in the lens galaxy
induce uncorrelated changes in the flux of the images. This
microlensing effect can help us overcoming these difficulties as it is
sensitive to the size of the emitting region and thus, can be used to
extract information about both the source and the lens. Photometric
monitoring and spectroscopic observations in different epochs are a
powerful technique to measure the dimensions of the different emitting
regions in a gravitationally lensed quasar and to probe their
kinematics. In this talk I will show how to use gravitational
microlensing to reveal the size and geometry of AGNs on different
scales, starting from the broad-line region (BLR), followed by the
accretion disk, down to the smallest region of the AGN - the central
supermassive black hole (SMBH).

Created on 27-02-2021 by Zitrin, Adi (zitrin)
Updaded on 27-02-2021 by Zitrin, Adi (zitrin)