Related papers: Time Variability of Quasars: the Structure Functio…
We use multi-epoch quasar spectroscopy to determine how accurately single-epoch spectroscopy can locate quasars in emission-line parameter space in order to inform investigations where time-resolved spectroscopy is not available. We explore…
We present the results from a time domain study of absorption lines detected in quasar spectra with repeat observations from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7). Beginning with over 4500 unique time separation baselines…
We present the second Multi-Epoch X-ray Serendipitous AGN Sample (MEXSAS2), extracted from the 6th release of the XMM Serendipitous Source Catalogue (XMMSSC-DR6), cross-matched with Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasar catalogues DR7Q and DR12Q.…
A method offering an order of magnitude sensitivity gain is described for using quasar spectra to investigate possible time or space variation in the fine structure constant, alpha. Applying the technique to a sample of 30 absorption…
We determine the radio and optical luminosity evolutions and the true distribution of the radio loudness parameter R, defined as the ratio of the radio to optical luminosity, for a set of more than 5000 quasars combining SDSS optical and…
We put robust upper limits on the average cosmological density \Omega_s of cosmic strings based on the variability properties of a large homogeneous sample of SDSS quasars. We search for an excess of characteristic variations of quasar…
A sample of 123 radio sources that exhibit significant variations at 1.4 GHz on a seven year base-line has been created using FIRST VLA B-array data from 1995 and 2002 on a strip at dec=0 near the south Galactic cap. This sample spans the…
This paper sets out to measure the timescale of quasar variability with a view to new understanding of the size of accretion discs in active galactic nuclei. Previous attempts to measure such timescales have been based on sparsely sampled…
We present a first systematic time series study of a sample of blazars observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite $\textit{TESS}$ spacecraft. By cross matching the positions of the sources in the TESS observations with those from…
Quasars are bright and unobscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) thought to be powered by the accretion of matter around supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. The temporal variability of a quasar's brightness contains valuable…
The lifetime t_Q of the luminous phase of quasars is constrained by current observations to be between 10^6 and 10^8 years, but is otherwise unkown. We model the quasar luminosity function in detail in the optical and X-ray bands using the…
Most of the successful physical theories rely on the constancy of few fundamental quantities (such as the speed of light, $c$, the fine-structure constant, \alpha, the proton to electron mass ratio, \mu, etc), and constraining the possible…
We present a catalog of broad H$\beta$ variability properties for all spectra of quasars with $z<0.8$ and at least two observations included in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 16 quasar catalog. For each spectrum, we…
The distribution of SDSS quasars is described. The dependence of observational number of quasars within distances to an observer less than r on distance r is found to be the power law with correlation dimension value equal 2,71 in redshift…
There have recently been several reports of apparently periodic variations in the light curves of quasars, e.g. PG 1302-102 by Graham et al. (2015a). Any quasar showing periodic oscillations in brightness would be a strong candidate to be a…
We have investigated the spatial distribution of quasars and its relationship with redshift by using the two-point correlation function, the variance of cell counts and the conditional density as a function of redshift. By comparing our…
We present the results from a study of the timing properties and the energy spectrum of the radio-quiet quasar PG0804+761, based on monitoring RXTE PCA observations that lasted for a year. This is a systematic study of the X-ray variations…
Interstellar scintillation (ISS) has been established as the cause of the random variations seen at centimetre wavelengths in many compact radio sources on timescales of a day or less. Observations of ISS can be used to probe structure both…
We report on the second installment of an X-ray monitoring project of seven luminous radio-quiet quasars (RQQs). New {\sl Chandra} observations of four of these, at $4.10\leq z\leq4.35$, yield a total of six X-ray epochs, per source, with…
Observations over the last two decades have shown that a significant fraction of all flat-spectrum, extragalactic radio sources exhibit flux density variations on timescales of a day or less at frequencies of several GHz. It has been…