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# The Narrow Line Region of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 GalaxiesBased on observations made at CASLEO. Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito (CASLEO) is operated under agreement between the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y técnicas de la República Argentina and the National Universities of La Plata, Córdoba and San Juán.

## 1 Introduction

Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies (hereafter NLS1) are a peculiar group of AGNs where the permitted optical lines show full width half-maximum (FWHM) not exceeding 2000 km s-1, the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio is $`<`$ 3 and the UV-VIS spectrum is usually very rich in high ionization lines and Fe II emission multiplets. In the soft X-ray band, NLS1s have generally much steeper continuum slopes and rapid variability (Boller, Brandt & Fink 1996, hereafter BBF96). Recently, Leighly (1999) found that the hard X-ray photon index is significantly steeper in NLS1s compared with that of normal Seyfert 1s, and that soft excess emission appears considerably more frequently in NLS1s than in Seyfert 1 (hereafter Sy1) galaxies with broad optical lines.

It is not known at present the origin of the narrowness of broad permitted lines in NLS1s. Osterbrock & Pogge (1985); Ulvestad, Antonucchi & Goodrich (1985) and Stephens (1989) suggest that if the velocities in the BLR of Seyfert 1s were largely confined to a plane, the NLS1 galaxies could be understood as cases in which the line of sight is nearly perpendicular to this plane. BBF96 state, on the other hand, that if the gravitational force from the central black hole is the dominant cause of the motions of Seyfert BLR clouds, narrower optical emission lines will result from smaller black hole masses provided the characteristics BLR distance from the central source does not change strongly with black hole masses.

However, Rodríguez-Pascual, Mass-Hesse & Santos-Lléo (1997) report the detection in NLS1 galaxies of broad components with FWHM around 5000 km s-1 for the high ionization UV permitted lines such as Ly$`\alpha `$, C IV $`\lambda `$1550 and He II $`\lambda `$1640. This result indicates that gas moving at velocities comparable to those found in typical Sy1 galaxies does indeed exist in NLS1s. In the optical region, they found “broad” components with FWHM less than 3000 km s-1, narrower than the broadest UV component in the same objects. Nonetheless, deblending the optical permitted lines in NLS1s is difficult because no transition between the narrow and broad components is observed. This shortcoming has strong influences in, for example, the analysis of the narrow line region (NLR) due to the large uncertainties in determining the fraction of H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ which originates from low ionization material.

Up to now, most studies of the NLR in NLS1s assume that the flux emitted by the narrow H$`\beta `$ equals 10% of the flux of \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 (Osterbrock & Pogge 1985; Leighly 1999). This assumption is based on the results obtained from Seyfert 2 and intermediate Sy1 galaxies (e.g. Koski 1978; Cohen 1983). But in recent years, growing observational evidence points out to the existence of differences between the NLR of normal Sy1 and Sy2 galaxies (Schmitt & Kinney 1996; Schmitt 1998), making the above assumption highly uncertain. In addition, fixing the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio to 10 implies ignoring the large scatter in the value of this ratio observed in normal Sy1s (2 to 19, see for example Rodríguez-Ardila, Pastoriza & Donzelli 1999, hereafter Paper I) and overlook the influences that this ratio could have in the energetics and physical conditions of the NLR of these objects.

Due to the above reason, the main purpose of this paper is to seek additional constrains in order to estimate the actual contribution of the narrow H$`\beta `$ flux to the total H$`\beta `$ emission line and study the implications that the newly adopted values could have on narrow line ratios and the physics of the NLR of NLS1s.

The present work is organized as follows. In Section 2 we describe the sample of NLS1s used in this paper. Section 3 presents the decomposition into narrow and broad components carried out in the Balmer lines of the NLS1 galaxies. Photoionization models that successfully reproduce the observed line ratios of NLS1s are presented in Section 4. A discussion of the main results appears in Section 5 and the conclusions are presented in Section 6.

## 2 Observations

Long-slit spectroscopic observations of seven NLS1 galaxies covering the spectral region 3700 Å - 9500 Å were obtained with the 2.15 m telescope of the Complejo Astronomico El Leoncito (CASLEO) using a TEK 1024 $`\times `$ 1024 CCD detector and a REOSC spectrograph. Two gratings of 300 l/mm with blaze angles near 5500 Å and 8000 Å, respectively, were used in order to fully cover the spectral interval 3700 – 9500 Å. The spatial scale of this setup is 0.95″/pix, with an instrumental resolution of 7 Å FWHM. A slit width of 2″.5 oriented in the East-West direction and crossing the center of the galaxies was employed. The galaxies and standard stars were observed near the zenith (air masses $`<`$ 1.2). A complete log of the observations and reduction procedure are described in Paper I.

CTS J03.19, CTS J04.08, CTS J13.12 and CTS H34.06 were classified as NLS1s by us based on the appearance of their respective optical spectrum. The criterion used in this classification is that the permitted lines be slightly broader than the forbidden lines, following the definition of Osterbrock & Pogge (1985). MRK 1239, CTS R12.02 (=NGC 4748) and 1H 1934-063 are well known NLS1s objects. For this reason, we consider that our sample is optically selected, in contrast to most NLS1s published in the literature, which are based on X-ray selected objects. The luminosities of the galaxies are low to intermediate and their radial velocities are not larger than 16,000 km s-1. Figure 1 shows the spectra of the seven galaxies of the current study, already corrected for redshift.

Fe II emission, which is particularly strong in NLS1s, may alter the flux and width of H$`\beta `$ \+ \[O III\] $`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$4959,5007. For this reason we have carefully removed the Fe II multiplets following the method described in Boroson & Green (1992). It consists of constructing a Fe II template by removing the lines which are not of Fe II from the spectrum of IZw1, a NLSy1 galaxy widely known for the strength of the Fe II emission and the narrowness of its “broad lines.” For this purpose, a high signal to noise spectrum of IZw1 covering the spectral range 3500-6800 Å was taken in one of the observing runs. After isolating the Fe IIemission, the template was broadened by convolving it with a Gaussian profile having a FWHM similar to that of the H$`\beta `$ line and scaled to match the observed Fe II emission of the corresponding galaxy. Figure 2 shows the above procedure for 1H 1934-063 (upper panel), CTS R12.02 (middle panel) and MRK 1239 (lower panel). In each case it is shown the observed spectrum, the Fe II template and the resulting spectrum after removing the Fe II emission. It can be seen that the most important Fe II features at both sides of H$`\beta `$ have been cleanly removed leaving as a residual the true He II $`\lambda `$4686 line profile and, in MRK 1239, the \[FeIXV\] $`\lambda `$5302 line.

## 3 The Gaussian Description of The Emission Line Profiles

### 3.1 Results of line profile fitting

In order to characterize the emission line profiles of the NLS1s we have assumed that they can be represented by a single or a combination of Gaussian profiles. The liner routine (Pogge & Owen 1993) which is a $`\chi ^2`$ minimization algorithm that fits as many as eight Gaussians to a line profile, was used for this purpose.

As a first steep we tried to fit the H$`\alpha `$ emission line with a single Gaussian component. H$`\alpha `$ is the strongest optical permited line and is located in a spectral region with the highest S/N. It is therefore the best place to look for broad components to the permitted optical lines of NLS1s. The best fit obtained is shown in the left panels of Figure 3. The thick line represents the synthetically calculated profile and the dotted line the residuals of the fit. It is clear that this simplest representation cannot adjust adequately the wings of H$`\alpha `$ although its core is nicely fitted in most of the objects. We then tried to adjust a second Gaussian to H$`\alpha `$. The best solution found are shown in the right panels of the same figure. Now the residuals of the fit are quite similar to the noise level around H$`\alpha `$, implying that a narrow (FWHM $``$ 600 km s-1) plus a broad component (FWHM $``$ 2500 km s-1) give a convincingly better description of the observed profiles. In the above fits the only constraints applied were that \[N II\] $`\lambda `$6548 and \[N II\] $`\lambda `$6584 be of equal FWHM and that their flux ratio and wavelength separation be equal to their theoretical value (1:3 and 36 Å, respectively).

The same decomposition was applied to H$`\beta `$ \+ \[O III\] $`\lambda `$4959,5007. As for H$`\alpha `$, the fit of H$`\beta `$ with a single Gaussian gives a poor representation of this line and it was necessary to include an additional component to represent adequately the observed profile. Figure 4 shows the results of this decomposition. The residuals (dashed line) of the dual component fit (right panels) are significantly improved with respect to the fit with a single Gaussian (left panels).

Columns 2 to 7 of Table 1 list the FWHM (in km s-1) of the emission lines measured from the Gaussian fitting. These values were obtained from the subtraction, in quadrature, of the observed FWHM and that of the instrumental profile, measured from the comparison lamp lines (FWHM $``$ 360 km s-1 at H$`\alpha `$). The flux ratio of the narrow to the broad component of H$`\beta `$ for each galaxy is listed in Column 8 and the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 flux, relative to the narrow H$`\beta `$ component, is in Column 9. In all but one case (MRK 1239), the center of the narrow components was coincident with the systemic velocity of the corresponding galaxy. MRK 1239 presents a second blueshifted (with an outflow velocity of 600 km s-1 with respect to the nucleus) broader (FWHM $``$ 1580 km s-1) component that is also present in H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ (see Figures 3 and 4) and that we associated to the NLR .

It is important to stress that the same result, –i.e a narrow component plus a broad one in the permitted lines of H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ – would be obtained if instead of using the Gaussian decomposition technique we had employed the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 line as a template representative of the NLR profiles. This test was applied to the H$`\beta `$ line of the galaxy sample in order to see if the broad component found in the permitted lines using the Gaussian representation were not an artifact of the fitting procedure. For this purpose the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 line was isolated and normalized to the peak intensity of the H$`\beta `$ line to represent the maximum allowed H$`\beta `$ contribution from the NLR to the observed profile. When subtracted, the residuals consist basically of a broad wing and a strong absorption coincident with the peak position of the template profile, such as shown in Figure 5 for the NLS1 galaxies 1H 1934-063, CTS R12.02, CTS J13.12 and MRK 1239.

We interpret the broad wings as a clear evidence of the presence of a broad component similar to that observed in normal Seyfert 1 galaxies but with a smaller FWHM, supportting the results of Rodríguez-Pascual, Mass-Hesse and Santos-Léo (1997); Gonçalves, Véron & Véron-Cetty (1999) and Nagao et al. (1999) who also report a broad component in the permitted lines of NLS1s. The absorption is interpreted as due to an overestimation of the NLR component. Scaling the template profile in order to eliminate the absorption in the residuals leaves a pure broad component very similar in intensity and width as that found in the Gaussian decomposition (dashed line of Figure 5). In fact, the values of FWHM and line fluxes obtained using this approach is essentially the same as those obtained formely.

We conclude from the above test that the broad feature observed in H$`\beta `$ and H$`\alpha `$ is real and it is interpreted here as the contribution from the BLR to the H$`\beta `$ line.

Some authors (Moran, Halpern & Helfand 1996, Gonçalves, Veron-Cetty & Veron 1999) have suggested that NLS1s have more nearly Lorentzian, rather than Gaussian, profiles, as evidenced by their cusped peaks and broad wings, mainly in H$`\beta `$ and \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 lines and even in H$`\alpha `$. We have tested this hypothesis by fitting one-component Lorentzian profiles to the Balmer and adjacent lines. The best solution, plotted in Figure 6 for CTS R12.02, 1H 1934-063 and MRK 1239 shows that this description does not provide a satisfactory fit to the emission lines. Very similar results were obtained for the other NLS1s of our sample. In all cases, the wings of the Lorentzians are more extended than the wings of the observed profiles. This effect is more pronounced in H$`\alpha `$ (left panels of Figure 6) than in H$`\beta `$ (right panels), giving the apparent impression that this latter line is better fitted by a Lorentzian profile. We attribute this effect to the lower S/N of the H$`\beta `$ region, which reduces the contrast of faint broad component wings relative to the narrow line. The poor fit obtained for the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$4959,5007 lines demonstrate that the Lorentzian profiles are unsuitable for representing the NLR profiles of NLS1s.

At this point it is important to note that the choice of the Gaussian profile as representative of the form of the observed emission lines was due to its simplicity and lack of physical reasons to adopt another particular form. We must be aware that the decomposition of the permitted lines into narrow and broad components, particularly in NLS1s, is a very uncertain task. As Evans (1988) noted, the fitting of symmetrical functional forms to the observed profiles may lead to the appereance of “components” in the center and wings of the lines but that, in certain circumstances, cannot bear any physical meaning. In addition, the observed profile can be the result of the superposition of many emitting regions located along the line of sight, each of them with a different intrinsic profile. For these reasons, one has to look with caution the deblending into broad and narrow components obtained for the permitted lines. Nonetheless, the fact of having obtained similar results using two independent methods give additional support to our interpretation.

### 3.2 Meaning of the Narrow and Broad Components in NLS1s

In the previous section we showed that the permitted lines of NLS1s can be decomposed into a narrow and a broad component, as is usually carried out in normal and intermediate Seyfert 1 galaxies. But what is the real meaning of this? A Gaussian representation as such, is only a mathematical way of fitting approximately the data. Additional evidence and a rationale are needed in order to identify each Gaussian component with physically different regions. Also, we must be aware that the number of Gaussian components adjusted to a given line basically depends on the spectral resolution and the S/N within the region of the fit.

Two important points call our attention regarding the values presented in Table 1. First, the FWHM of the “broad” components in H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ are rather similar within the same galaxy and from object to object. Second, the FWHM of the narrow component of permited lines is similar to that of the forbidden (\[O III\] and \[N II\]) lines. They are also larger than the width of the instrumental profile (FWHM $``$ 360 km s-1).

It is generally accepted that the kinematics of the BLR clouds is largely dominated by the gravitational potential of the central black hole. The FWHM of the lines emitted in that region is a measure of the dispersion of velocities of the emitting gas, along the observer’s line of sight, which represents also the depth of the gravitational potential well in which the emitting clouds find themselves. For this reason, it is expected that lines formed in the same spatial region will have similar FWHM and emission line profiles.

A similar argument can be applied to the narrow lines. However, the NLR is much more extended and located farther out from the central source (1–100 pc) so these clouds are immersed in a shallower gravitational potential dominated by the galaxy bulge.

Therefore, the consistency of the width and profile form of the broad components of H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ and the similarity in width of the narrow permitted and forbidden lines, within the same galaxy, allow us to associate the narrow and broad Gaussian components of the permitted lines to the integrated line emission from the NLR and BLR, respectively.

A comparison of the FWHM of the narrow lines of our sample with those measured with a similar setup in normal Seyfert 1s (Cohen 1983; Stephens 1989; Puchnarewicz et al. 1997) shows that no differences seem to exist in the NLR kinematics between these two groups of galaxies.

The main difference lies in the BLR. The FWHM of the broad component is not only significatively smaller than that of the normal Sy1s but also its relative contribution to the total flux of the line is greatly reduced in these objects. In Column 8 of Table 1 we have listed the ratio of the flux associated to the narrow component to that of the broad one. It can be seen that on average, this ratio is very near unity, meaning that 50% of the total line flux is due to the narrow component. For comparison, this ratio is around 0.1 in typical Sy1 galaxies.

The above results by themselves do not represent a major departure from our current picture of NLS1s. However, a significant difference emerges when we consider line ratios between the narrow component of H$`\beta `$ and \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007. In effect, since Osterbrock & Pogge (1995) and up to very recently (Leighly 1999), it has been assumed that the contribution in flux of the narrow component of H$`\beta `$ to the NLR spectrum of a given object equals 10% of the flux of \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007. This assumption is based on the fact that \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ is, on average, $``$ 10 in Seyfert 2 galaxies (Veilleux and Osterbrock 1987). Nonetheless, growing evidence of important differences between the NLR of Sy1 and Sy2 galaxies have appeared in the literature (Schmitt & Kinney 1996, Schmitt 1998; Paper I). In addition, NLS1s are recognized as a subclass within the realm of Seyfert 1s due to their peculiar properties, making very unlikely that the above assumption really holds in these objects, as is shown in column 9 of Table 1, which lists the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$(narrow) ratio found from our decomposition of line profiles. These values also show that there is a wide intrinsic dispersion in the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio of NLS1s, ranging from 0.8 to 5.

Since the new values of the narrow \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio are drawn from the decomposition into narrow and broad components of the Balmer lines, it is important to discuss the uncertainties inherent to the deblending process. Strictly speaking, one should be inclined to treat the flux associated to the narrow component of the permitted lines as a lower limit, being the actual flux between this value and that obtained from the total flux of the line. The latter option would be the case if no contribution from the BLR were present, as was initially suggested by Osterbrock & Pogge (1985) in order to explain the absence of broad permitted lines in NLS1s. Under the last circumstance, the resulting \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio would be even smaller but would not change drastically. It would now fall into the interval 0.5 – 1.7, making the departure from the ratios found in normal Seyfert 1 galaxies even stronger.

One can argue that the deblending of the permitted lines overestimated the flux of the narrow H$`\beta `$ component, making the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio appear smaller that it really does. That is, instead of being a lower limit, it represents an upper limit. Under this circumstance, the actual flux of the narrow H$`\beta `$ would range between this upper limit and a small fraction of the total line flux. Physically, this is highly improbable, at least for two reasons. First, H$`\beta `$ is emitted by every gas component, so the narrow H$`\beta `$ cannot be narrower than the narrowest NLR line. This is in accord to the values of Table 1, where the FWHM of H$`\beta `$ is similar to that of \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 and of the same order of \[N II\] $`\lambda `$6584.

Second, lets suppose that the actual narrow H$`\beta `$ flux corresponds to 50% of value obtained from the deblending process. With this in mind, the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio would now fall in the interval 1.6 – 10. But now a new problem will arise: the reddening measured from the Balmer decrement would be increased up to 0.7 mag. Such an increase in the E(B-V) would have a strong influence in the resulting emission line spectrum. Probably new physical processes and ionization mechanisms should need to be invoked in order to explain the observed spectrum. In addition it would not be clear in which emitting region the remaining “narrow” flux would be produced. In the BLR? in the intermediate NLR?

In the following sections, additional evidence supporting the results obtained from the deblending process is given. Nonetheless, it is clear that a large spatial resolution, such as that obtained with the HST, is necessary in order to examine carefully the NLR of NLS1 galaxies.

## 4 Matter-Bounded and Ionization Bounded clouds in the NLR of NLS1s

We have found that the NLR of NLS1s are characterized by lower \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratios, more typical of some starburst or H II galaxies than of canonical Seyfert 1s or 2s. In addition, it was shown in Paper I that i) NLS1s have intrinsically weak low ionization forbidden lines; ii) the dominant mechanism of the NLR emission is photoionization by a central source and iii) a wide range of densities (103 cm-3 – 106 cm-3) must exist in the NLR of these objects, with the larger densities associated to the inner NLR regions where \[O III\] and the high ionization lines are emitted while the lowest values are associated to the \[O I\] and \[S II\] emitting regions.

A scenario which springs naturally from the above results invokes the presence of at least two types of clouds. A denser, inner set of high excitation matter-bounded (MB) clouds are required to enhance the temperature sensitive \[O III\] 4363Å line relative to 5007Å (due to collisional deexcitation) and also matter-bounded in order not to emit low excitation lines (from low ionization species such as O I, S II, N II…). The MB component is where most of the \[O III\] emission and high ionization lines such as He II, \[Ne V\], \[Fe VII\] and \[Fe X\] would be produced. To account for the lower excitation lines, it is necessary to consider a second component consisting of outer, less dense set of ionization-bounded (IB) clouds, responsible for the production of low-ionization lines such as \[O I\], \[N II\] and \[S II\] (whose doublet ratio points to low densities) and some \[O III\] as well. These clouds must lie at a much larger distance in order that the ionization parameter be much smaller than the MB component as discussed in Rodríguez-Ardila, Pastoriza & Maza (1998, hereafter RAPM). Our starting hypothesis is that the relative proportion of these two types of clouds combined with a suitable choice of the input ionizing continuum will reproduce the observed differences between the NLR of NLS1s and that of normal Seyfert 1 galaxies.

This dual-component model have been successfully applied before to account for the observed emission line ratios of the NLR and extended narrow line region of many Seyfert 1 and 2 galaxies (Binette, Wilson & Storchi-Bergmann 1996, Binette et al. 1997, RAPM, Aita-Fraquelli, Storchi-Bergmann & Binette 1999). Such a simple model is surely an over-simplification relative to the wide range in parameters needed to fully describe the NLR (to illustrate the complexity of the problem see Moore & Cohen 1996, Ferguson et al. 1997 and Komossa & Schulz 1997). However, in the absence of sufficient observational constraints on all possible models and geometries of the NLR, it appears to us to be the simplest mean for taking into account the particular emission line signature reported in RAPM, that is a high density high excitation spectrum observed in conjunction with the presence of low density low excitation lines.

### 4.1 The Photoionization Models

In this section we test whether the simplified dual-component MB-IB description can satisfactorily account for the anomalous line ratios observed in NLS1s. We are particularly interested in determining which kind of spectral energy distribution (SED) observed in AGNs can best produce a \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio in the range 1 – 5 and the strongest optical emission lines, using similar physical parameters to those employed to model the NLR of normal Seyfert 1 galaxies. A detailed photoionization modeling of the NLS1 emission line ratios is in preparation (Rodríguez-Ardila, Binette & Pastoriza 1999)

Although there is no direct way to determine the intrinsic shape of the ionizing continuum in the EUV domaine, recent work by Zheng et al. (1997) and Laor et al. (1997) show that the ionizing continuum, from the Lyman limit to soft X-ray energies, may be characterized by a power-law of index $`\alpha 2`$. This result was derived from QSOs of intermediate redshifts but may be extended to lower luminosity AGN such as Seyfert 1 galaxies. Korista, Ferland & Baldwin (1997) suggest flatter indices $`\alpha 1.5`$, which have been used by Binette, Wilson & Storchi-Bergmann (1996) and RAPM, for instance, in their modeling of Seyfert 1 objects. Meanwhile, ROSAT observations of NLS1s show that the soft X-ray photon index is systematically steeper than that of Seyfert 1 galaxies with broad optical lines (BBF96; Foster & Halpern 1996; Laor et al. 1997).

Due to the above reasons, we generated sequences of models assuming a SED of broken power-laws of the form Fν = K$`\nu ^\alpha `$ where:

$$\alpha =1.4,13.6eVh\nu 1300eV;\alpha =0.4,h\nu 1300eV$$
(1)
$$\alpha =2.2,13.6eVh\nu 2000eV;\alpha =1.1,h\nu 2000eV$$
(2)
Equation 1 (SED 1) corresponds to the fit made by Kraemer et al. (1998) to the observed SED of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548. Equation 2 (SED 2) uses the median values of the spectral indices found from ROSAT and ASCA data for NLS1s (Leighly 1999).

For each SED, the $`A_{M/I}`$ parameter, which characterizes the relative proportion of MB and IB clouds, was varied from 0.04 to 11. Density estimates of the NLR of NLS1s based on density and temperature line ratios (cf Paper I) show that MB clouds should have $`n_e10^6`$ cm-3 while in IB clouds $`n_e10^3`$ cm-3. The ionization parameter $`U_{MB}`$ at the illuminated face of the MB clouds was initially set to 10-1.5, following estimates by RAPM, Kraemer et al. (1998) and Kraemer et al. (1999) for normal Seyfert 1 galaxies.

The multipurpose code MAPPINGS Ic (Ferruit et al. 1997) was used to compute the dual-component photoionization models. Plane-parallel geometry was assumed given the relatively large distance of the ionized clouds from the central source compared to the geometrical depth of the clouds. The gas is assumed to be atomic and the gas abundances solar. In order to let the inner set of clouds be matter-bounded, a fraction FMB of the input ionizing continuum is left to escape from the back of the clouds. This fraction was initially set to $`60`$% (the value used in Ferruit et al. 1997) but was allowed to increase substantially for the models making use of the steep SED. This was necessary in order to keep a high value of the He II/H$`\beta `$ ratio emitted by the MB component, an essential ingredient of the dual-component models. The “filtered” continuum is later used to ionize the IB clouds further out (which do not emit any He II). The IB clouds integration is stopped when the electron temperature falls below 5000 K. Dust is considered to be mixed with the ionized gas, and the code includes heating by dust photoionization. The dust content of the photoionized plasma is described by the quantity $`\mu `$ which is the dust-to-gas ratio of the plasma expressed in units of the solar neighborhood dust-to-gas ratio ($`\mu =1`$). In this work we use a constant $`\mu `$ = 0.015, which has a negligible effect on line transfer and on the gas heating.

Figure 7 shows the predicted \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007, He II $`\lambda `$4686, \[O I\] $`\lambda `$6300 and \[O III\] $`\lambda `$4363, relative to H$`\beta `$ as function of the relative proportion of MB and IB clouds, AM/I. The solid line corresponds to the predictions of SED 1 and the dashed line to the ratios obtained with SED 2. In order to compare the output with the observations we have plotted the dereddened observed ratios for the NLS1 galaxies CTS H34.06 (filled triangle), 1H 1934-063 (filled square), CTS R12.02 (filled circle) and MRK 1239 (open square) as taken from Paper I. NGC 5548 was chosen as representative of the normal Seyfert 1 galaxies. Its dereddened ratios were taken from Kraemer et al. 1998 and are shown as filled diamonds. Table 2 lists the predictions of the best-fit model for the most important optical lines observed in each galaxy and the parameters of the corresponding model.

A close inspection to Figure 7 and the values of Table 2 allows us to say that our approach is successful at reproducing the observed ratios overall. The fact of being able to predict simultaneously and accurately the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ and He II $`\lambda `$4686/H$`\beta `$ ratios for the NLS1 galaxies and NCG 5548 indicates that the general distribution of ionizing photons at least in the range 13.6 – 100 eV is correct. Since the model parameters were rather similar for the two SEDs, the results provide a strong support to the idea that the NLR of NLS1s and Sy1s have similar physical properties in terms of density, chemical abundance, ionization parameter and distance to the central source. The most probable cause of the observed spectral differences can be related to the variation in steepness of their ionizing continuum.

The largest discrepancies between models and observations, for some of the galaxies, are in low excitation lines ratios such as \[O I\] $`\lambda `$6300/H$`\beta `$, \[S II\] $`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$6717,6731/H$`\beta `$ and \[N II\] $`\lambda `$6584/H$`\beta `$. These are overpredicted by a factor of 2 in CTS H34.06, 1H 1034-063 and MRK 1239.

This systematic overprediction, nonetheless, might provide helpful constraints to the physical conditions of the IB clouds and the nature of the central ionizing source. In effect, it is well known that the low ionization lines of AGNs are produced by the flux of high energy EUV photons in the range 300–900 eV (cf fig 1 in Binette et al. 1997) which penetrate deep into the NLR gas. If these photons are not allowed to reach this region, intrinsically weaker low ionization lines will be emitted. A possible candidate for this shielding might plausibly be a high ionization warm absorber (hereafter WA), located near the BLR. Evidences for the existence of such an absorbing material have been found in several NLS1s, particularly in those with high polarization (Leighly 1997). MRK 1239, the NLS1 with the largest discrepancies between the predicted and observed low ionization lines, (cf. Table 2) is widely known for being highly polarized (Goodrich 1989) and for showing WA spectral features (Leighly et al. 1997; Grupe et al. 1998). In contrast, CTS R12.02 (= NGC 4748) shows one of the lowest percentage of polarization (0.12% against 2.89% of MRK1239) according to Goodrich (1989) and presents here the best agreement between the model and the observed line ratios, even in the low ionization lines. No report about X-rays WA features are found in the literature for this galaxy.

Although polarization data for the remaining NLS1s are not available at present, the case of MRK 1239 can be taken as a good evidence for atenuation of the hard X-ray continuum and its influence on the NLR emitted spectrum. We discard the possibility of higher densities for the IB clouds since the derived value using the \[S II\] $`\lambda `$6717/$`\lambda `$6731 ratio in the galaxies are near $`10^3`$ cm-3.

Although a finer tuning of the parameters might improve the agreement between the observations and the model predictions for the objects studied here, this is unwarranted considering the simplicity of the approach taken. What is important to note is that the same initial set of physical conditions (albeit different SED) derived independently for normal Seyfert 1s are also valid to reproduce to a first approximation the emission line ratios observed in NLS1s.

## 5 New Emission Line Ratios for the NLR of NLS1s

As was discussed in the Introduction and Section 3.2, one of the main purposes of this paper is to review the current assumption that the NLR contributes H$`\beta `$ with 0.1$`\times `$ the flux of \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007, implying a universal constant \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio of 10 (Osterbrock & Pogge 1985, Leighly 1999). This assumption is usually made on account of the difficulty in deblending the narrow and broad components of the permitted lines in these objects and is based on trends observed in narrow emission lines of Seyfert 2s and intermediate Seyfert 1 galaxies. According to the results obtained in Section 3 the NLR of NLS1s contributes 50% of the total H$`\beta `$ emission. This has important implications for the intrinsic ratios of the narrow lines. For instance, \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ (narrow) now falls in the interval 1–5 since narrow H$`\beta `$ sees its flux increased by up to ten times its previously assumed value.

If we had (erroneously) assumed that in NLS1s the \[O III\]$`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ (narrow) ratio took the canonical value of 10 of normal Seyferts, we would have inferred a spectral index $`\alpha 1.4`$ to describe the EUV-to-soft-X-ray SED since such hardness is favored when atempting to reproduce a high ratio. The ROSAT observations, however, show that the soft X-ray spectra from NLS1s is systematically steeper ($`\alpha 2`$ or smaller) than those from Seyfert 1 galaxies with broad optical lines. In addition, Table 2 shows that photoionization models with $`\alpha 2.2`$ always provide \[O III\]$`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratios smaller than 7 under the initial set of conditions assumed. This result is therefore fully consistent with our findings of a much lower ratio in NLSIs than in normal Seyferts. Beside, much lower NLR densities ($`n_B10^5`$ cm-3) would have been required to get \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ around 10 using SED 2. Such low densities would be discrepant with the higher ones determined in Paper I and from other authors (Osterbrock & Pogge 1985).

One possibility is that the continuum in the 13.6–200 eV region that photoionizes the NLR of NLS1s is similar to that of NGC 5548 (SED 1), but that it is modified before reaching the NLR gas by intervening material located between the BLR and NLR. Kraemer et al. (1999) explored, for instance, the effects of UV absorbing material on the shape of the continuum radiation emitted from the AGN, and on the relative strengths of the ensuing emission lines formed in the NLR of Seyfert 1 galaxies exposed to this emerging continuum distribution. Their results indicated that a low ionization UV absorber with a large covering factor can indeed modify the intrinsic EUV continuum of the central source and produce significative variations in the NLR emission spectrum of the AGN compared to that produced by the unattenuated continuum. Nonetheless, amongst the various types of warm absorbers tested, no model could reproduce a low \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio. It should be mentioned that they assumed the NLR gas to be uniformly radiation-bounded unlike the models presented here which consist of a combination of MB and IB components.

We consider worthy to test whether the inclusion of a low-ionization WA with similar characteristics to that of Kraemer et al. (1999) and exposed to SED 1 might explain the strongest (narrow) line ratios observed in NLS1s. In this picture, differences in \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ for example would be caused by the effects of the intervening WA rather than by changes in steepness of the intrinsic EUV – soft X-ray continuum, as was suggested in the preceding section. Results are presented in Fig. 7 where the short-dashed line shows the predicted line ratios for a NLR with the same physical parameters as employed in modeling NCG 5548 but photoionized by the continuum leaking from a WA with $`U_{WA}`$=0.01, $`n_H=1\times 10^7`$ cm-3, solar abundance and thickness N$`{}_{\mathrm{H}}{}^{}=10^{20}`$ cm-2. The intrinsic SED incident on the WA was SED 1.

Comparison of these results with those of the unabsorbed model (solid line) allows us to say that the variations of the emission line ratios introduced by an intervening low-ionization WA are relatively minor and clearly insufficient for explaining the differences in line ratios observed between NLS1s and normal Sy1s. On the other hand, models with $`U_{WA}<10^{2.5}`$ are found to alter the incident EUV-to-soft-X-ray distribution in such a way that few photons are left to ionize the NLR as in Kraemer et al. (1999). It can be seen that the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio does not change significantly relative to the unabsorbed model. In either cases, low ionization lines such as \[O I\] $`\lambda `$6300 (Figure 7c) see their ratios increase relative to H$`\beta `$. The same trend is observed for \[N II\] $`\lambda `$6584 and \[S II\] $`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$6717,6731. We recall from the previous section that these lines were already overpredicted. The lower the ionization degree of the WA, the larger this effect. This is clearly understood if we consider that the net effect of a low-ionization WA is to modify the EUV distribution while the hard EUV portion is left unaltered. Since low ionization lines are produced by the harder EUV radiation, they are now augmented due to the reduction of ionizing photons which produce the Balmer and He II $`\lambda `$4686 lines.

We therefore conclude that a low-ionization WA, if it exists in NLS1s, cannot explain the low \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratio observed in these objects.

## 6 Conclusions

We have analyzed long-slit spectral data of a sample composed of seven NLS1 galaxies. A decomposition of the H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ emission line profiles into Gaussian components allowed us to separate the flux contribution of the NLR from the total flux of the line. Our results show that, on average, 50% of the total H$`\beta `$ flux is due to emission from the NLR. Using the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 line profile as a template for the narrow lines in order to subtract this contribution in the permitted lines give very similar results to those obtain throught the Gaussian decomposition. This confirms the presence of a broad component in the permitted lines.

The FWHM of the broad components of H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ in the NLS1s studied here seems to be rather uniform within the same galaxy after comparing H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ and throughout the sample (2250 km s-1 and 2560 km s-1 for H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$, respectively). No evidence of Lorentzian profiles was observed neither in the narrow nor the broad lines. The narrow components of H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ present FWHM comparable to those of the forbidden lines which are typical of the NLR in any Seyfert.

The resulting \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007/H$`\beta `$ ratios fall in the interval 1–5, significantly lower than the value currently assumed ($``$10). This entails that the emission line ratios from the NLR are different in NLS1s from those observed in normal and intermediate Sy1 galaxies.

We test photoionization models that consider a NLR composed of a combination of matter-bounded clouds and ionization-bounded clouds. The former, with typical densities $`10^6`$ cm-3 and photoionized by the intrinsic continuum from the central source, are responsible for the emission of most of the \[O III\] and high ionization lines. This component should be located in the inner regions of the NLR. The latter, located farther out than the MB clouds and characterized by a lower density ($`n_e10^3`$ cm-3), are photoionized by the continuum filtered from the MB clouds and emits most of the low ionization lines. Assuming similar physical parameters in the NLR of NLS1s and normal Sy1s, we show that the observed differences in emission line ratios between these two groups of galaxies can be explained in terms of differences in the form of the input ionizing spectra. NLS1s ratios are better reproduced with a steep power-law continuum, with spectral index $`\alpha <2`$ while flatter spectral indices ($`\alpha 1.5`$) match the observed line ratios in normal Sy1s. This scenario reproduces with very good agreement the line ratios of NLS1s. It is furthermore consistent with ROSAT observations of NLS1s, which show that these objects are characterized by steeper power-law indices than those of Sy1 galaxies with broad optical lines. Our modeling therefore support the view that the NLR is directly photoionized by the unaltered SED distribution emitted by the central engine.

ARA gratefully acknowledges the staff of the CASLEO Observatory for instrumental and observing assistance. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Californian Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The work of Luc Binette was supported by the CONACyT grant 27546-E and the work of ARA and MGP was supported by the PRONEX/FINEP grant 76.97.1003.00