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Related papers: Changing-Look AGN Powered By Disk Tearing

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The changing-look active galactic nucleus (CL-AGN), an extraordinary subpopulation of supermassive black holes, has attracted growing attention for understanding its nature. We present an analysis of the spectral properties of 203…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-10-13 Yu-Heng Shen , Kai-Xing Lu , Wei-Jian Guo , Sha-Sha Li , Hai-Cheng Feng , Zhang Yue , Wen-Zhe Xi , Jian-Guo Wang , Jin-Ming Bai

Warped accretion discs in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) exert a torque on the black hole that tends to align the rotation axis with the angular momentum of the outer disc. We compute the magnitude of this torque by solving numerically for…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-10-31 Priyamvada Natarajan , Philip J. Armitage

Context. Changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL-AGNs) challenge the unified model of AGNs and offer key insights into the physics of the accretion processes of super-massive black holes. While systematic spectroscopic comparisons have…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-05-26 Litao Zhu , Zhongxiang Wang , Alok C. Gupta , P. U. Devanand , Ruoheng Yang , Qiangmeng Huang , Man Lang , Jiawen Li

The nature of the so-called ``changing-look'' (CL) active galactic nucleus (AGN), which is characterized by spectral-type transitions within $\sim10$~yr, remains an open question. As the first in our series of studies, we here attempt to…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2023-09-22 J. Wang , W. K. Zheng , T. G. Brink , D. W. Xu , A. V. Filippenko , C. Gao , C. H. Xie , J. Y. Wei

Changing-look active galactic nuclei (CLAGNs) are a unique population of AGNs that exhibit the appearance (turn-on) or disappearance (turn-off) of broad emission lines. This study aims to explore the intrinsic mechanisms of CLAGNs by…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-11-14 Huimei Wang , Xue-Bing Wu , Nanyu Yao , Bing Lyu , Yuxuan Pang , Yuming Fu , Rui Zhu , Qian Yang

We study the structure of accretion disks around supermassive black holes in the radial range $30\sim 100$ gravitational radii, using a three dimensional radiation magneto-hydrodynamic simulation. For typical conditions in this region of…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-09-02 Yan-Fei Jiang , Omer Blaes

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…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-07 M. R. S. Hawkins

We model the broadband (optical/UV and X-ray) continuum spectrum of the "changing-look" active galactic nucleus (AGN) Mrk 1018 as it fades from Seyfert 1 to 1.9 in $\sim 8$ years. The brightest spectrum, with Eddington ratio $L/L_{\rm…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-08-08 Hirofumi Noda , Chris Done

We investigate the long-term variability of the known Changing Look Active Galactic Nuclei (CL AGN) Mrk 1018, whose second change we discovered as part of the Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS). Collating over a hundred years worth of…

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

The 4 Ms Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S) and other deep X-ray surveys have been highly effective at selecting active galactic nuclei (AGN). However, cosmologically distant low-luminosity AGN (LLAGN) have remained a challenge to identify…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-03 M. Young , W. N. Brandt , Y. Q. Xue , M. Paolillo , D. M. Alexander , F. E. Bauer , B. D. Lehmer , B. Luo , O. Shemmer , D. P. Schneider , C. Vignali

The repeating changing-look active galactic nuclei (RCL AGNs) exhibit multiple appearances and disappearances of broad emission lines (BELs), whose underlying mechanism remains a puzzle. Expanding the sample of RCL AGNs is valuable for…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-10-22 Qian Dong , Zhi-Xiang Zhang , Wei-Min Gu , Mouyuan Sun , Wei-Jian Guo , Zhen-Yi Cai , Jun-Xian Wang , Yong-Gang Zheng

Using grid-based hydrodynamics simulations and analytic modeling, we compute the electromagnetic (EM) signatures of gravitational wave (GW) driven inspirals of massive black hole binaries that accrete gas from circumbinary disks, exploring…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-02-26 Jonathan Zrake , Madeline Clyburn , Samuel Feyan

Rapid, large amplitude variability at optical to X-ray wavelengths is now seen in an increasing number of Seyfert galaxies and luminous quasars. The variations imply a global change in accretion power, but are too rapid to be communicated…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-11-28 Jason Dexter , Mitchell C. Begelman

Although more than 1000 optical changing-look active galactic nuclei (CLAGNs) have been reported to date, their physical origin remains unclear, and repeating CLAGNs (RCLAGNs) are still rare. Expanding the CLAGN sample, especially RCLAGNs,…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-05-26 Guohai Chen , Wenxin Yang , Xuhong Ye , Zhiqiang Chen , Zhiyuan Pei , Hubing Xiao , Junhui Fan

Disk continuum reverberation mapping is one of the primary ways we learn about active galactic nuclei (AGN) accretion disks. Reverberation mapping assumes that time-varying X-rays incident on the accretion disk drive variability in…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-01-14 Amy Secunda , Yan-Fei Jiang , Jenny E. Greene

High cadence, high quality observations of active galactic nuclei (AGN) clearly show continuum variations with lags, relative to the shortest observed variable UV continuum, that increase with wavelength ("lag spectra"). These have been…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-11-17 Hagai Netzer

Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei (CL AGNs) exhibit drastic variations in broad emission lines (BELs), the mechanism of which remains unclear. Expanding the sample of CL AGNs is helpful to reveal the mechanism. This study aims to…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-04-24 Qian Dong , Zhi-Xiang Zhang , Wei-Min Gu , Mouyuan Sun , Yong-Gang Zheng

We present a model that explains some extreme variability phenomena observed in active galactic nuclei (AGN). In this model, an orbiting companion interacts with the accretion disk surrounding the central supermassive black hole (SMBH).…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-06-26 Sierra A. Dodd , Xiaoshan Huang , Shane W. Davis , Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz

Changing-look phenomenon observed now in a growing number of active galaxies challenges our understanding of the accretion process close to a black hole. We propose a simple explanation for the sources where multiple semi-periodic outbursts…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-09-30 M. Sniegowska , B. Czerny , E. Bon , N. Bon