Lag measurements for 15 z<0.8 QSOs from the SDSS-RM

Here we report preliminary results of 15 BLR lag measurements from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project, a dedicated RM program with multi-object spectroscopy designed for RM over a wide redshift range.

The lags are based on the 2014 spectroscopic light curves alone (32 epochs over six months) and focus on the H{beta} and Mg II broad lines in the 100 lowest-redshift (z<0.8) quasars included in SDSS-RM; they represent a small subset of the lags that SDSS-RM (including 849 quasars to z~4.5) is expected to deliver. The reported preliminary lag measurements are for intermediate-luminosity quasars at 0.3<~z<0.8, including nine H{beta} lags and six Mg II lags, for the first time extending RM results to this redshift-luminosity regime and providing direct quasar black hole mass estimates over approximately half of cosmic time.