Quasar Variability Measurements With SDSS Repeated Imaging and POSS Data
Abstract
We analyze the properties of quasar variability using repeated SDSS imaging data in five UV-to-far red photometric bands, accurate to 0.02 mag, for 13,000 spectroscopically confirmed quasars. The observed time lags span the range from 3 hours to over 3 years, and constrain the quasar variability for rest-frame time lags of up to two years, and at rest-frame wavelengths from 1000 Ang. to 6000 Ang. We demonstrate that 66,000 SDSS measurements of magnitude differences can be described within the measurement noise by a simple function of only three free parameters. The addition of POSS data constrains the long-term behavior of quasar variability and provides evidence for a turn-over in the structure function. This turn-over indicates that the characteristic time scale for optical variability of quasars is of the order 1 year.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0404487,
title = {Quasar Variability Measurements With SDSS Repeated Imaging and POSS Data},
author = {Z Ivezic and R. H. Lupton and M. Juric and S. Anderson and P. B. Hall and G. T. Richards and C. M. Rockosi and D. E. Vanden Berk and E. L. Turner and G. R. Knapp and J. E. Gunn and D. Schlegel and M. A. Strauss and D. P. Schneider},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0404487},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
2 pages, 2 color figures, "Proceedings IAU Symposium 222: The Interplay among Black Holes, Stars and ISM in Galactic Nuclei", submitted