English
Related papers

Related papers: A long term study of AGN X-ray variability. Struct…

200 papers

Accreting supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies are the engine of active galactic nuclei (AGN). X-ray light curves of unabsorbed AGN show dramatic random variability on timescales ranging from seconds to years. The power…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-10-29 Mehdy Lefkir , Simon Vaughan , Mike Goad , Daniela Huppenkothen , Phil Uttley

We conducted an analysis of gamma-ray variability in a large sample of jetted active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by utilizing archival Fermi-LAT light curves and applying damped random walk modeling to obtain variability amplitude. Our primary…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-05-21 Yongyun Chen , Qiusheng Gu , Junhui Fan , Dingrong Xiong , Xiaoling Yu , Xiaogu Zhong , Xiaotong Guo , Nan Ding

Some progress in understanding AGN variability is reviewed. Reprocessing of X-ray radiation to produce significant amounts of longer-wavelength continua seems to be ruled out. In some objects where there has been correlated X-ray and…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2009-07-27 C. Martin Gaskell , Elizabeth S. Klimek

We present a series of X-ray variability results from a long XMM-Newton + NuSTAR campaign on the bright, variable AGN NGC 3227. We present an analysis of the lightcurves, showing that the source displays typically softer-when-brighter…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-04-30 A. P. Lobban , T. J. Turner , J. N. Reeves , V. Braito , L. Miller

We systematically analyze X-ray variability of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the 7~Ms \textit{Chandra} Deep Field-South survey. On the longest timescale ($\approx~17$ years), we find only weak (if any) dependence of X-ray variability…

We study the X-ray properties of a sample of 14 optically-selected low-mass AGN whose masses lie within the range 1E5 -2E6 M(solar) with XMM-Newton. Only six of these low-mass AGN have previously been studied with sufficient quality X-ray…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-23 R. M. Ludlam , E. M. Cackett , K. Gultekin , A. C. Fabian , L. Gallo , G. Miniutti

We use a sample of over 5000 active galactic nuclei (AGN) with extended morphologies at z<0.8 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to study the ensemble optical variability as a function of rest-frame time lag and AGN luminosity with…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2014-10-01 Unai Gallastegui-Aizpun , Vicki L. Sarajedini

We present a systematic investigation of extremely X-ray variable active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the $\approx 5.3~{\rm deg}^2$ XMM-SERVS XMM-LSS region. Eight variable AGNs are identified with rest-frame 2 keV flux density variability…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-03-03 Zijian Zhang , Bin Luo , Linhua Jiang , W. N. Brandt , Jian Huang , Qingling Ni

The X-ray emission from active galactic nuclei (AGN) is highly variable. Measurements of time lags (characterised by lag spectra) between variability in the light curves in energy bands corresponding to directly observed continuum emission…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-12 D. R. Wilkins , A. C. Fabian

[Abbreviated] We search for scaling relations between the fundamental AGN parameters and rest-frame UV/optical variability properties for a sample of $\sim$90 X-ray selected AGNs covering a wide redshift range from the XMM-COSMOS survey,…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-01-13 T. Simm , M. Salvato , R. Saglia , G. Ponti , G. Lanzuisi , K. Nandra , R. Bender

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…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-10 W. H. de Vries , R. H. Becker , R. L. White , D. J. Helfand

Several investigations of the X-ray variability of active galactic nuclei (AGN) using the normalised excess variance (${\sigma^2_{\rm NXS}}$) parameter have shown that variability has a strong anti-correlation with black hole mass ($M_{\rm…

X-ray variability is a well-established characteristic of active galactic nuclei (AGN), known to correlate inversely with both the supermassive black hole mass and luminosity, although the degree of each remains a topic of debate. The…

Interband lags in the optical continua of active galactic nuclei (AGN) have been observed over years of monitoring, yet their physical origins remain unclear. While variable interband lags have been found in a few individual AGN…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-07-08 Zhen-Bo Su , Zhen-Yi Cai , Hengxiao Guo , Mouyuan Sun , Jun-Xian Wang

Variable continuum emission from AGN can be used to probe the structure of their accretion disks via reverberation mapping. Assuming a variable, hot inner light source irradiates the surrounding accretion disk, time delays between different…

We analyze the X-ray properties for a sample of 23 high probability AGN candidates with ultraviolet variability identified in Wasleske et al. (2022). Using data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the XMM-Newton Observatory, we find…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-05-31 Erik J. Wasleske , Vivienne F. Baldassare

Temporal analysis of X-ray binaries and Active Galactic Nuclei have shown that hard X-rays react to variation of soft ones after a time delay. The opposite trend, or soft lag, has only been seen in a few rare Quasi-periodic Oscillations in…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-05-28 Shruti Tripathi , Ranjeev Misra , Gulab Dewangan , Shantanu Rastogi

The accretion flow in AGN is not well understood, motivating intensive monitoring campaigns of multiwavelength variability to probe its structure. One of the best of these is the 3 year optical/UV/X-ray approximately daily monitoring…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-11-05 Scott Hagen , Chris Done , Edward M. Cackett , Ethan R. Partington , Rick Edelson , Collin Lewin , Erin Kara , Jonathan Gelbord

Variability is a property shared by virtually all active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and was adopted as a criterion for their selection using data from multi epoch surveys. Low Luminosity AGNs (LLAGNs) are contaminated by the light of their…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 D. Trevese , K. Boutsia , F. Vagnetti , E. Cappellaro , S. Puccetti

The origin of the optical flux variability in active galactic nuclei (AGN) is largely unknown. Previous studies have correlated features of the variability structure function (SF) with AGN properties, though they mostly involved…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-05-06 Ashley Hai Tung Tan , Christian Wolf , Neelesh Amrutha , Christopher A. Onken , John L. Tonry , Rachel Webster