Stacked Reverberation Mapping of High Redshift Quasars in DESI. I. Feasibility Analysis
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ID: 322850
2026
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Abstract
Abstract The broad line region of quasars has long been probed by reverberation mapping techniques that measure time lags between continuum and broad emission line variations. Stacked reverberation mapping has been proposed as a less observationally expensive alternative to traditional methods. This ensemble approach also reduces biases from small-number statistics. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is conducting the most extensive spectroscopic survey of quasars to date. We create mock light curves emulating expected DESI quasar observations at redshifts 1.48 < z < 5.2 and luminosities 44.68 ≤ log λL1350/erg s−1 ≤ 45.99 to test stacked reverberation mapping feasibility using sparse spectroscopic data paired with well-sampled photometric data. The pipeline, using the lag estimation code javelin, successfully recovers the simulated C iv lags within one sigma of the true values using spectroscopic light curves composed of only a few spectral epochs (2-10) with irregular cadences. We investigate how observational factors, including C iv flux error magnitude, number of stacked quasars, and spectral epoch count, affect performance. This work motivates a pathway for future stacked reverberation mapping projects with large scale spectroscopic surveys of quasars having ≥2 spectroscopic observations. Our results suggest an economical alternative for constraining and extending the radius-luminosity relation to higher redshifts and luminosities. Subsequently, this relation can be employed more reliably in single-epoch black hole mass measurements and quasar cosmology in these distant regimes.
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| Authors | Rahma Alfarsy, R E A Canning, Eva-Maria Mueller, Jessica Aguilar, Steven Ahlen, David Alexander, Davide Bianchi, David Brooks, P. Clark, Todd Claybaugh, Andrei Cuceu, T. M. Davis, Axel de la Macorra, Saisrinivas Dhavala, Victoria A. Fawcett, Benjamin Floyd, Andreu Font-Ribera, J. E. Forero-Romero, Enrique Gaztañaga, Wei-Jian Guo, Gaston Gutierrez, Klaus Honscheid, Richard Joyce, S. Juneau, David Kirkby, Theodore Kisner, Anthony Kremin, C. Lamman, Martin Landriau, Laurent Le Guillou, Paul Martini, Hugh McDougall, Aaron Meisner, Ramon Miquel, John Moustakas, S. Nadathur, Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille, Zhiwei Pan, Swayamtrupta Panda, Ignasi Pérez-Ràfols, Francisco Prada, Ragadeepika Pucha, Graziano Rossi, Eusebio Sanchez, David Schlegel, Michael Schubnell, T. Shanks, M. Siudek, David Sprayberry, Gregory Tarlé, Benjamin Alan Weaver, Hu Zou |
| Journal | monthly notices of the royal astronomical society |
| Year | 2026 |
| DOI |
10.1093/mnras/stag1418
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| URL | |
| Keywords | Keywords not found |
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