Mr. Suvendu Rakshit Profile

Suvendu Rakshit

PHD fellow at Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur

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Proceedings Article | 24 July 2014 Paper

AGN BLR structure, luminosity and mass from combined reverberation mapping and optical interferometry observations

Suvendu Rakshit, Romain Petrov

Proceedings Volume 9146, 91460Q (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2056436

KEYWORDS: Visibility, Clouds, Interferometry, Stereolithography, Solids, Signal to noise ratio, Spectral resolution, K band, Interferometers, Kinematics

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Unveiling the structure of the Broad-Line Region (BLR) of AGN is critical to understand the quasar phenomenon. Detail study of the geometry and kinematic of these objects can answer the basic questions about the central BH mass, accretion mechanism and rate, growth and evolution history. Observing the response of the BLR clouds to continuum variations, Reverberation Mapping (RM) provides size-luminosity and mass-luminosity relations for QSOs and Sy1 AGNs with the goal to use these objects as standard candles and mass tags. However, the RM size can receive different interpretations depending on the assumed geometry and the corresponding mass depends on an unknown geometrical factor as well on the possible confusion between local and global velocity dispersion. From RM alone, the scatter around the mean mass is as large as a factor 3. Though BLRs are expected to be much smaller than the current spatial resolution of large optical interferometers (OI), we show that differential interferometry with AMBER, GRAVITY and successors can measure the size and constrain the geometry and kinematics on a large sample of QSOs and Sy1 AGNs. AMBER and GRAVITY (K_ 10:5) could be easily extended up to K= 13 by an external coherencer or by advanced incoherent" data processing. Future VLTI instrument could reach K~ 15. This opens a large AGN BLR program intended to obtain a very accurate calibration of mass, luminosity and distance measurements from RM data which will allow using many QSOs as standard candles and mass tags to study the general evolution of mass accretion in the Universe. This program is analyzed with our BLR model allowing predicting and interpreting RM and OI measures together and illustrated with the results of our observations of 3C273 with the VLTI.

Proceedings Article | 24 July 2014 Paper

Hierarchical fringe tracking

Romain Petrov, Thami Elhalkouj, Abdelkarim Boskri, Jean-Pierre Folcher, Stéphane Lagarde, Yves Bresson, Zouhair Benkhaldoun, Mohamed Lazrek, Suvendu Rakshit

Proceedings Volume 9146, 91462P (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2056677

KEYWORDS: Fourier transforms, Telescopes, Spatial filters, Sensors, Integrated optics, Interferometers, Interferometry, Spectral resolution, Optical interferometry, Optical tracking

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The limiting magnitude is a key issue for optical interferometry. Pairwise fringe trackers based on the integrated optics concepts used for example in GRAVITY seem limited to about K=10.5 with the 8m Unit Telescopes of the VLTI, and there is a general “common sense” statement that the efficiency of fringe tracking, and hence the sensitivity of optical interferometry, must decrease as the number of apertures increases, at least in the near infrared where we are still limited by detector readout noise. Here we present a Hierarchical Fringe Tracking (HFT) concept with sensitivity at least equal to this of a two apertures fringe trackers. HFT is based of the combination of the apertures in pairs, then in pairs of pairs then in pairs of groups… The key HFT module is a device that behaves like a spatial filter for two telescopes (2TSF) and transmits all or most of the flux of a cophased pair in a single mode beam. We give an example of such an achromatic 2TSF, based on very broadband dispersed fringes analyzed by grids, and show that it allows piston measures from very broadband fringes with only 3 to 5 pixels per fringe tracker. We show the results of numerical simulation indicating that our device is a good achromatic spatial filter and allowing a first evaluation of its coupling efficiency, which is similar to this of a single mode fiber on a single aperture. Our very preliminary results indicate that HFT has a good chance to be a serious candidate for the most sensitive fringe tracking with the VLTI and also interferometers with much larger number of apertures. On the VLTI the first rough estimate of the magnitude gain with regard to the GRAVITY internal FT is between 2.5 and 3.5 magnitudes in K, with a decisive impact on the VLTI science program for AGNs, Young stars and planet forming disks.

Proceedings Article | 12 September 2012 Paper

VLTI/AMBER differential interferometry of the broad-line region of the quasar 3C273

Romain Petrov, Florentin Millour, Stéphane Lagarde, Martin Vannier, Suvendu Rakshit, Alessandro Marconi, Gerd weigelt

Proceedings Volume 8445, 84450W (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.926595

KEYWORDS: Visibility, Calibration, Interferometry, Data processing, Error analysis, Colorimetry, Fourier transforms, Spectral resolution, K band, Sensors

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Unveiling the structure of the Broad Line Region (BLR) of AGNs is critical to understand the quasar phenomenon. Resolving a few BLRs by optical interferometry will bring decisive information to confront, complement and calibrate the reverberation mapping technique, seed of the mass-luminosity relation in quasars. BLRs are much smaller than the angular resolution of the VLT and Keck interferometers and they can be resolved only by differential interferometry very accurate measurements of differential visibility and phase. The latest yields the photocenter variation with λ, and constrains the size, position and velocity law of various regions of the BLR. AGNs are below the magnitude limit for spectrally resolved interferometry set by currently available fringe trackers. A new “blind” observation method and a data processing based on the accumulation of 2D Fourier power and cross spectra permitted us the first spectrally resolved interferometric observation of a BLR, on the K=10 quasar 3C273. A careful bias analysis is still in progress, but we report strong evidence that, as the baseline increases, the differential visibility decreases in the Pa_α line. Combined with a differential phase certainly smaller than 3°, this yields an angular radius of the BLR larger than 0.4 milliarcseconds, or 1000 light days at the distance of 3C273, much larger than the reverberation mapping radius of 300 light days. Explaining the coexistence of these two different scales, and possibly structures and mechanisms, implies very new insights about the BLR of 3C273.

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