PREPRINT
C88AB0AE-FFDC-4052-8261-E6EEA14001CB

# Revisiting the Continuum Reverberation Lags in the AGN PKS 0558-504

D. H. González-Buitrago, J. V. Hernández Santisteban, A. J. Barth, E. Jimenez-Bailón, Yan-Rong Li, Ma. T. García-Díaz, A. Lopez Vargas, M. Herrera-Endoqui
arXiv:2207.02474

Submitted on 6 July 2022

## Abstract

We present a revised analysis of the photometric reverberation mapping campaign of the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy PKS 0558-504 carried out with the Swift Observatory during 2008--2010. Previously, Gliozzi et al.\ found using the Discrete Correlation Function (DCF) method that the short-wavelength continuum variations lagged behind variations at longer wavelengths, the opposite of the trend expected for thermal reprocessing of X-rays by the accretion disc, and they interpreted their results as evidence against the reprocessing model. We carried out new DCF measurements that demonstrate that the inverted lag-wavelength relationship found by Gliozzi et al.\ resulted from their having interchanged the order of the driving and responding light curves when measuring the lags. To determine the inter-band lags and uncertainties more accurately, we carried out new measurements with four independent methods. These give consistent results showing time delays increasing as a function of wavelength, as expected for the disc reprocessing scenario. The slope of the re-analysed delay spectrum appears to be roughly compatible with the predicted $\tau \propto {\lambda }^{4/3}$ relationship for reprocessing by an optically thick and geometrically thin accretion disc, although the data points exhibit a large scatter about the fitted power-law trend.

## Preprint

Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables

Subjects: Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies; Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena