Spectropolarimetry and spectral decomposition of high-accreting Narrow
  Line Seyfert 1 galaxies
  Narrow Line Seyfert 1 (NLSy1) galaxies have been shown to have high Eddington
ratios and relatively small black hole masses. The measurement of the black
hole masses is based on the virial relation which is dependent on the
distribution of the line-emitting gas and the viewing angle to the source.
Spectropolarimetry enables us to probe the geometry of this line-emitting gas
and allows us to estimate independently the viewing angle of the source by
comparing the spectrum viewed under natural light and in the polarized light.
We performed spectropolarimetric observations of three NLSy1 - Mrk 1044, SDSS
J080101.41+184840.7, and IRAS 04416+1215 using the European Southern
Observatory's Very Large Telescope. We use ESO Reflex workflow to perform
standard data reduction and extract the natural and polarized spectra. We
estimate the Stokes parameters and the viewing angles of the three sources. We
model the Stokes parameters and infer the properties of the scattering media -
located in the equatorial and polar regions, and simulate the spectra observed
both in natural light and in polarized light using the polarization radiative
transfer code STOKES. We confirm that all three sources are high Eddington
ratio objects. We are successful in recovering the observed H$\alpha$ line
profile both in the natural and polarized light using the STOKES modelling. We
recover the polarization fractions of the order of 0.2-0.5% for the three
sources. Our principal component analysis shows that the sample of the 25
sources including our sources, Fairall 9 from Jiang et al. (2021), and sources
from Capetti et al. (2021) are mainly driven by the black hole mass and
Eddington ratio. We re-affirm the connection of the strength of the optical
FeII emission with the Eddington ratio. But, the dependence on the viewing
angle is moderate, more like a secondary effect.
