Source size measurement from observed quasar microlensing

Atsunori Yonehara
, PASA, 18 (2), in press.
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Contents Page: Volume 18, Number 2

Source size measurement from observed quasar microlensing

Atsunori Yonehara 1, 2

1 Department of Astronomy, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8502, JAPAN

2 Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

Abstract:

Recently, the OGLE team have reported a clear quasar microlensing signal in Q2237+0305. I have analyzed the microlens event of ``image C'' by using their finely and densely sampled light curves. From light-curve fitting, I unambiguously set the source size of $\le 0.98$ Einstein Ring radius as a conservative limit. This limit corresponds to

$2000 {\rm ~AU}$, if I adopt

$M_{\rm lens} \sim 0.1M_{\odot}$ obtained by a recent statistical study of the mean mass of the lens object. This gives clear evidence for the existence of an accretion disk in the central region of the quasar.

Keywords:accretion, accretion disks -- galaxies: active -- gravitational lensing -- quasars: individuals (Q2237+0305)



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