Related papers: Tracking the state transitions in changing-look ac…
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are powered by the accretion of material onto a supermassive black hole (SMBH), and are among the most luminous objects in the Universe. However, the huge radiative power of most AGN cannot be seen directly, as…
Among all the astronomical sources investigated through the prism of polarimetry, active galactic nuclei (AGN) have proven to be the richest in terms of complex yet fundamental signatures that helped to understand their true nature. Indeed,…
Changing-look transitions challenge our understanding of active galactic nuclei (AGN), exhibiting dramatic changes in broad-line emission and continuum flux on timescales of months to years. We present a detailed study of the…
The extremes of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) variability offer valuable new insights into the drivers and physics of AGN. We discuss some of the most extreme cases of AGN variability; the highest amplitudes, deep minima states, extreme…
Growing supermassive black holes (Active Galactic Nuclei; AGN) release energy with the potential to alter their host galaxies and larger-scale environment; a process named "AGN feedback". Feedback is a required component of galaxy formation…
Recent models of super-massive black hole (SMBH) and host galaxy joint evolution predict the presence of a key phase where accretion, traced by obscured Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) emission, is coupled with powerful star formation. Then…
In this lecture note, we make the case for new (spectro)polarimetric measurements of "changing-look" AGNs (CLAGNs), a subclass of the AGN family tree that shows long-term (months to years) large flux variability associated with the…
The discovery of changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL AGNs), with appearance and disappearance of broad emission lines and/or with strong variation of line-of-sight column density within a few years, challenges the AGN unification…
Among the most extreme objects in the Universe, active galactic nuclei (AGN) are luminous centers of galaxies where a black hole feeds on surrounding matter. The variability patterns of the light emitted by an AGN contain information about…
Optical observations cannot resolve the structure of active galactic nuclei (AGN), and a unified model for AGN was inferred mostly from indirect methods. Optical reverberation mapping allowed us to constrain the spatial dimension of the…
For over 60 years, the scientific community has studied actively growing central super-massive black holes (active galactic nuclei -- AGN) but fundamental questions on their genesis remain unanswered. Numerical simulations and theoretical…
The anisotropic nature of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is thought to be responsible for the observational differences between type-1 (pole-on) and type-2 (edge-on) nearby Seyfert-like galaxies. In this picture, the detection of emission…
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) have long been observed to "twinkle" (i.e., their brightness varies with time) on timescales from days to years in the UV/optical bands. Such AGN UV/optical variability is essential for probing the physics of…
Bright Active Galactic Nuclei are powered by accretion of mass onto the super massive black holes at the centers of the host galaxies. For fainter objects star formation may significantly contribute to the luminosity. We summarize…
A key feature of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is their variability across all wavelengths. Typically, AGN vary by a few tenths of a magnitude or more over periods lasting from hours to years. By contrast, extreme variability of AGN -- large…
Multi-wavelength observations of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) often reveal various time scales of variability. Among these phenomena, "changing-look AGNs" are extreme cases where broad emission lines become faint/bright or even…
Changing-look AGNs (CLAGN) are accreting supermassive black hole systems that undergo variations in optical spectral type, driven by major changes in accretion rate. Mrk 1018 has undergone two transitions, a brightening event in the 1980s…
The variability of active galactic nuclei (AGN) has long held the promise of shedding light on their detailed structure, and possibly other astrophysical phenonema. Different emission mechanisms lead to different patterns of variability in…
The kinematic disturbances associated with major galaxy mergers are known to produce gas inflows, which in turn may trigger accretion onto the supermassive black holes (SMBH) of the participant galaxies. While this effect has been studied…
We present the results of a combined galaxy population analysis for the host galaxies of active galactic nuclei (AGN) identified at 0 < z < 1.4 within the SDSS, Bootes and DEEP2 surveys. We identified AGN in a uniform and unbiased manner at…