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The evolutionary role of the so-called ``changing-look'' (CL) active galactic nucleus (AGN), which is characterized by spectral-type transitions within $\sim10$ yr, has been suggested in the past few years. By focusing on CL-AGNs having…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-03-24 J. Wang , S. Jin , D. W. Xu , WeiKang Zheng , Thomas G. Brink , S. Komossa , 1 Alexei V. Filippenko , J. Y. Wei

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are known to exhibit stochastic variability across a wide range of timescales and wavelengths. AGN flares are extreme outbursts that deviate from this typical behavior and may trace a range of energetic…

The Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) glossary is vast and complex. Depending on selection method, observing wavelength, and brightness, AGNs are assigned distinct labels, yet the relationship between different selection methods and the…

Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei (CL-AGNs) are a subset of AGNs in which the broad Balmer emission lines appear or disappear within a few years. We use the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey to identify…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-09-09 Xiaoling Yu , Yong Shi , Yanmei Chen , Jianhang Chen , Songlin Li , Longji Bing , Junqiang Ge , Rogemar A. Riffel , Rogério Riffel

We report the discovery of six active galactic nuclei (AGN) caught "turning on" during the first nine months of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey. The host galaxies were classified as LINERs by weak narrow forbidden line emission…

Changing-look active galactic nuclei (CLAGNs) show the disappearance and reappearance of broad emission lines in a few years, which challenges the orientation-based AGN unification model. We reduce the X-ray data for five well-studied…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-06-07 Hao Liu , Qingwen Wu , Bing Lyu

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are known to exhibit optical/UV variability and most of them can be well modeled by the damped random walks. Physical processes that are not related to the accretion disk, such as tidal disruption events (TDE)…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-04-17 Zhiyuan Zheng , Yong Shi , Shuowen Jin , H. Dannerbauer , Qiusheng Gu , Xin Li , Xiaoling Yu

Changing-look active galactic nuclei (CLAGNs) are known to change their spectral type between 1 and 2 (changing-state) or change their absorption between Compton-thick and Compton-thin (changing-obscuration) on timescales of years or less.…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-01-17 Bing Lyu , Zhen Yan , Xue-bing Wu , Qingwen Wu , Wenfei Yu , Hao Liu

Low luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGN) probe accretion physics in the low Eddington regime and can provide additional clues about galaxy evolution. AGN variability is ubiquitous and thus provides a reliable tool for finding AGN. We…

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-03-12 Summer A. J. McLaughlin , James R. Mullaney , Stuart P. Littlefair

The cosmological evolution of X-ray-selected and optically selected Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) show different behaviours interpreted in terms of two different populations. The difference is evident mainly for low luminosity AGNs…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 D. Trevese , V. Zitelli , F. Vagnetti , K. Boutsia , G. M. Stirpe

Apart from regular, low-level stochastic variability, some AGN occasionally show exceptionally large changes in the luminosity, spectral shape, and/or X-ray absorption. The most notable are the changes of the spectral type when the source…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-02-16 Marzena Sniegowska , Mikolaj Grzedzielski , Bozena Czerny , Agnieszka Janiuk

From a parent catalog of 561 changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL-AGNs) identified by Guo et al. (2025), we investigate the evolutionary sequence of broad emission lines using a redshift-selected subset (0.35 < z < 0.45) of 54 CL-AGNs…

Changing look active-galatic-nuclei (CL AGNs) can yield considerable insight into accretion physics as well as the co-evolution of black holes and their host galaxies. A large sample of these CL AGNs is essential to achieve the latter goal.…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-02-05 Zhenfeng Sheng , Tinggui Wang , Ning Jiang , Jiani Ding , Zheng Cai , Hengxiao Guo , Luming Sun , Liming Dou , Chenwei Yang

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-09-25 Keiichi Wada , Yuki Kudoh , Tohru Nagao

Variability detected in galaxies is usually attributed to their active galactic nuclei (AGNs). While all AGNs are intrinsically variable, the AGN unification model predicts that type~2 AGNs rarely vary because their engines are blocked by…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-02-17 Bangzheng Sun , Haojing Yan , Wei Leong Tee , Feige Wang

Changing-look active galactic nuclei (CLAGNs) represent a rare class of AGNs that undergo transitions from type 1 (characterized by the presence of broad emission lines in their spectra) to type 2 (absence of broad emission lines) or vice…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-01-22 D. Hutsemékers , F. Marin , B. Agis González , J. -A. Acosta Pulido , M. Kokubo

Significant variability in broad emission line strengths of active galactic nuclei (AGN) over months to years has been observed, often accompanied by intrinsic continuum changes. Such spectral variability challenges the traditional AGN…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-07-22 Tek P. Adhikari , Santanu Mondal , Zhicheng He , Agata Rozanska , Krzysztof Hryniewicz

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are extremely powerful cosmic objects, driven by accretion of hot gas upon super-massive black holes. The zoo of AGN classes are divided into two major groups, with Type-1 AGN displaying broad Balmer emission…

To date, a number of changing-look (CL) active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are known. We studied, in detail what happens to the X-ray spectrum during the CL events using the example of the nearby CL Seyfert NGC1566, which was observed by Swift,…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-11-18 Lev Titarchuk , Elena Seifina , Yegor Mishin