Reverberation Mapping and the Disk Wind Model of the Broad Line Region

Abstract

Using the disk wind model of Murray et al. (1995), we calculate line profiles and frequency-resolved response functions for broad line emission from the surface of an accretion disk in an AGN in the presence of a radiatively driven wind. We find that the combined effects of the shears in the wind and in the disk itself produce anisotropic line emission which solves several well-known problems connected with disk models of the broad line region. In particular, the broadening of resonance lines such as \Civ, \Lya, and \Nv\/ can be attributed to orbital motion of the disk gas at radii as close as $\sim 10^{16}$~cm in Seyferts without requiring unrealistically large emission regions in order to produce single-peaked profiles. Furthermore, the anisotropy of the line emission results in frequency-dependent response functions which are no longer red-blue symmetric so that the time delays inferred for the various red and blue components of the line agree qualitatively with recent reverberation mapping observations of NGC~5548.