2009/10/31 by S. Poindexter, Shawn Poindexter, C. S. Kochanek +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion disc #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gravitational lens #Gravitational microlensing #Halo #Photometry (optics) #Physics #Quasar #RADIUS #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Thick disk #Thin disk #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/712/1/668
published as Astrophys.J.712:668-673,2010 · 7 pages, 6 figures; animated magnification pattern video can be found at http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~sdp/animation.avi; accepted for publication in ApJ
arxiv created 2010/02/09 · openalex publication_date 2010/03/04 · arxiv updated 2014/11/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Using a microlensing analysis of 11 years of OGLE V -band photometry of the four image gravitational lens Q2237+0305, we measure the inclination i of the accretion disk to be cos i > 0.66 at 68% confidence. Very edge on (cos i < 0.39) solutions are ruled out at 95% confidence. We measure the V -band radius of the accretion disk, defined by the radius where the temperature matches the monitoring band photon emission, to be R V = 5.8 +3.8 −2.3 × 10 15 cm assuming a simple thin disk model and including the uncertainties in its inclination. The projected radiating area of the disk remains too large to be consistent with the observed flux for a T ∝ R −3/4 thin disk temperature profile. There is no strong correlation between the direction of motion (peculiar velocity) of the lens galaxy and the orientation of the disk.