The Southern Hemisphere Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Infrared Survey

Understand

We present a near-infrared spectroscopic survey of narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies in the southern hemisphere (using the SOFI instrument on the ESO-NTT telescope), sampled from optical surveys.

• We examine the kinematics of the broad-line region, probed by the emission line width of hydrogen (Pa$\alpha$ and H$\beta$).
• We observed 57 objects, of which we could firmly measure Pa$\alpha$ in 49 cases.
• We find that a single Lorentzian fit (preferred on theoretical grounds) is preferred over multi-component Gaussian fits to the line profiles; a lack of narrow-line region emission, overwhelmed by the pole-on view of the broad line region (BLR) light, supports this.