On the variability of quasars: a link between Eddington ratio and optical variability?

Abstract

Repeat scans by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) of a 278 square degree stripe along the Celestial equator have yielded an average of over 10 observations each for nearly 8,000 spectroscopically confirmed quasars. Over 2500 of these quasars are in the redshift range such that the CIV emission line is visible in the SDSS spectrum. Utilising the width of these CIV lines and the luminosity of the nearby continuum, we estimate black hole masses for these objects. In an effort to isolate the effects of black hole mass and luminosity on the photometric variability of our dataset, we create several subsamples by binning in these two physical parameters. By comparing the ensemble structure functions of the quasars in these bins, we are able to reproduce the well-known anticorrelation between luminosity and variability, now showing that this anticorrelation is independent of the black hole mass. In addition, we find a correlation between variability and the mass of the central black hole. By combining these two relations, we identify the Eddington ratio as a possible driver of quasar variability, most likely due to differences in accretion efficiency.

13 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (44)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology
• The 2.5 m Telescope of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Reverberation Measurements for 17 Quasars and the Size-Mass-Luminosity Relations in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample
• Composite Quasar Spectra From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Central Masses and Broad-Line Region Sizes of Active Galactic Nuclei. II. A Homogeneous Analysis of a Large Reverberation-Mapping Database
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Photometric Camera
• The u'g'r'i'z' Standard Star Network
• Determining Central Black Hole Masses in Distant Active Galaxies and Quasars. II. Improved Optical and UV Scaling Relationships
• Spectral Energy Distributions and Multiwavelength Selection of Type 1 Quasars
• An Observational Determination of the Bolometric Quasar Luminosity Function
• Spectroscopic Target Selection for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Luminous Red Galaxy Sample
• Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Quasar Sample
• Astrometric Calibration of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Relationship Between Luminosity and Broad-Line Region Size in Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• A photometricity and extinction monitor at the Apache Point Observatory
• An Efficient Algorithm for Positioning Tiles in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Ensemble Photometric Variability of ~25000 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• A Modified Magnitude System that Produces Well-Behaved Magnitudes, Colors, and Errors Even for Low Signal-to-Noise Ratio Measurements
• Black Hole Masses and Eddington Ratios at 0.3<z<4
• Determining Central Black Hole Masses in Distant Active Galaxies
• The Radius-Luminosity Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei: The Effect of Host-Galaxy Starlight on Luminosity Measurements
• A Physical Model for the Origin of Quasar Lifetimes
• Long-term optical variability properties of the Palomar-Green quasars
• Continuum and Emission-Line Properties of Broad Absorption Line Quasars
• What controls the C IV line profile in active galactic nuclei?
• ROSAT monitoring of persistent giant and rapid variability in the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy IRAS 13224-3809
• Spectral Variability of Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I: Wavelength Dependence
• Variability in active galactic nuclei: confrontation of models with observations
• The Variability of Quasars. II. Frequency Dependence
• Broad Absorption Line Variability in Repeat Quasar Observations from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• An Empirical Calibration of the Completeness of the SDSS Quasar Survey
• Characteristic QSO Accretion Disk Temperatures from Spectroscopic Continuum Variability
• The dependence of quasar variability on black hole mass
• Spectral Properties From Lyman-alpha to H-alpha For An Essentially Complete Sample of Quasars I: Data
• Long Term Variability of SDSS Quasars
• Virial Masses of Black Holes from Single Epoch Spectra of AGN
• Multiepoch Sky Surveys and the Lifetime of Quasars
• Long-term Optical Variability of Radio-Selected Quasars from the FIRST Survey
• Continuum Variability of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Optical-UV Range
• Spectral Variability of Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. II: The C IV Line
• A Synoptic, Multiwavelength Analysis of a Large Quasar Sample

Cited by in corpus (93)

• Are the Variations in Quasar Optical Flux Driven by Thermal Fluctuations?
• Modeling the Time Variability of SDSS Stripe 82 Quasars as a Damped Random Walk
• A Description of Quasar Variability Measured Using Repeated SDSS and POSS Imaging
• Black Hole Mass Estimates Based on CIV are Consistent with Those Based on the Balmer Lines
• Changing-Look Quasar Candidates: First Results from Follow-up Spectroscopy of Highly Optically Variable Quasars
• Selecting Quasars by their Intrinsic Variability
• Science with a wide-field UV transient explorer
• Revisiting Stochastic Variability of AGNs with Structure Functions
• Microlensing of the broad line region in 17 lensed quasars
• Quasar Optical Variability in the Palomar-QUEST Survey
• The Kepler Light Curves of AGN: A Detailed Analysis
• Optical variability of AGN in the PTF/iPTF survey
• Pan-STARRS1 variability of XMM-COSMOS AGN. II. Physical correlations and power spectrum analysis
• Dependence of the optical/UV variability on the emission line properties and Eddington ratio in active galactic nuclei
• The correlations between optical variability and physical parameters of quasars in SDSS Stripe 82
• Improving Damped Random Walk parameters for SDSS Stripe 82 Quasars with Pan-STARRS1
• The Color Variability of Quasars
• Spectral variability of quasars from multi-epoch photometric data in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82
• Evidence for Large Temperature Fluctuations in Quasar Accretion Disks From Spectral Variability
• Detection of Time Lags Between Quasar Continuum Emission Bands based on Pan-STARRS Light-curves
• The Civ line width distribution for quasars and its implications for broad-line region dynamics and virial mass estimation
• An accretion disc model for quasar optical variability
• Can reverberation-measured quasars be used for cosmology?
• Long-Term Optical Continuum Color Variability of Nearby Active Galactic Nuclei
• Optical Variability of Narrow and Broad line Seyfert 1 galaxies
• Long-term X-ray variability of Swift J1644+57
• Examining AGN UV/optical Variability Beyond the Simple Damped Random Walk
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Ensemble Spectroscopic Variability of Quasar Broad Emission Lines
• Ensemble X-ray variability of Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Excess Variance and updated Structure Function
• The QUEST-La Silla AGN variability survey: connection between AGN variability and black hole physical properties
• Spectroscopic observation of Ly$\alpha$ emitters at z~7.7 and implications on re-ionization
• Variability and the X-ray/UV ratio of active galactic nuclei. II. Analysis of a low-redshift Swift sample
• Exploring Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey V: First Year Results
• GALEX observations of quasar variability in the ultraviolet
• The Lick AGN Monitoring Project: Photometric Light Curves and Optical Variability Characteristics
• Near Infrared Variability of obscured and unobscured X-ray selected AGN in the COSMOS field
• Reverberation Mapping of the Kepler-Field AGN KA1858+4850
• Simulating the timescale dependent color variation in quasars with a revised inhomogeneous disk model
• Deep modeling of quasar variability
• A large sample of Kohonen-selected SDSS quasars with weak emission lines: selection effects and statistical properties
• A comparative study of optical/ultraviolet variability of narrow-line Seyfert 1 and broad-line Seyfert 1 active galactic nuclei
• Ultraviolet variability of quasars: dependence on the accretion rate
• Supermassive black holes with high accretion rates in active galactic nuclei: X. Optical variability characteristics
• The X-ray/UV ratio in Active Galactic Nuclei: dispersion and variability
• The ensemble photometric variability of over $10^5$ quasars in the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Two New "Turn-off" Changing-look Active Galactic nuclei and Implication on "Partially Obscured" AGNs
• A structure function analysis of VST-COSMOS AGN
• High-redshift Extreme Variability Quasars from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Multi-Epoch Spectroscopy
• Constraints on the temperature inhomogeneity in quasar accretion discs from the ultraviolet-optical spectral variability
• Dwarf AGNs from Variability for the Origins of Seeds (DAVOS): Intermediate-mass black hole demographics from optical synoptic surveys
• A Systematic Analysis of Stellar Populations in the Host Galaxies of Changing-look AGNs
• Scatter Analysis Along the Multidimensional Radius-Luminosity Relations for Reverberation-Mapped Mg II Sources
• Evolution of quasar stochastic variability along its main sequence
• A forward modelling approach to AGN variability -- Method description and early applications
• A multi-epoch spectroscopic study of the BAL quasar APM 08279+5255: I. C IV absorption variability
• The QUEST-La Silla AGN Variability Survey
• Characterising the i-band variability of YSOs over six orders of magnitude in timescale
• Characterizing Quasar CIV Emission-line Measurements from Time-resolved Spectroscopy
• The Ultraviolet/optical variability of steep-spectrum radio quasars: the change in accretion rate ?
• An Electromagnetic Signature of Galactic Black Hole Binaries That Enter Their Gravitational-Wave Induced Inspiral
• The host galaxy properties of variability selected AGN in the Pan-STARRS1 Medium-Deep Survey
• The optical variability of SDSS quasars from multi-epoch spectroscopy: I. Results from 60 quasars with $\ge$ six-epoch spectra
• Faint COSMOS AGN at z~3.3 - I. Black Hole Properties and Constraints on Early Black Hole Growth
• The Time-Domain Spectroscopic Survey: Understanding the Optically Variable Sky with SEQUELS in SDSS-III
• The Mass-Richness Relation of MaxBCG Clusters from Quasar Lensing Magnification using Variability
• An intrinsic link between long-term UV/optical variations and X-ray loudness in quasars
• Ensemble power spectral density of SDSS quasars in UV/optical bands
• Reliable Identification of Binary Supermassive Black Holes from Rubin Observatory Time-Domain Monitoring
• An Accretion Disc-Irradiation Hybrid Model for The Optical/UV Variability in Radio-Quiet Quasars
• Extending the Eigenvector 1 Space to the Optical Variability of Quasars
• The ensemble optical variability of type-1 AGN in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7
• Continuum optical-UV and X-ray variability of AGN: current results and future challenges
• Measuring Lensing Magnification of Quasars by Large Scale Structure using the Variability-Luminosity Relation
• An Unobscured type II quasar candidate: SDSS J012032.19-005501.9
• Individual optical variability of Active Galactic Nuclei from the MEXSAS2 sample
• Photometric observations of selected, optically bright quasars for Space Interferometry Mission and other future celestial reference frames
• More variable quasars have stronger emission lines
• Optical Microvariability in Quasars: Spectral Variability
• Optical Variability Properties of Mini-BAL and NAL Quasars
• Examining AGN UV/Optical Variability Beyond the Simple Damped Random Walk. II. Insights from 22 Years Observations of SDSS, PS1 and ZTF
• Structure function of the UV variability of Q0957+561
• Ensemble Variability Properties of Active Galactic Nuclei in the SDSS DR17
• BAL Outflows are common in Low Eddington Ratio AGN
• Magnification relations of quad lenses and applications on Einstein crosses
• Optical spectral index - luminosity relation for the 17 mapped Palomar-Green quasars
• The relation between quasars' optical spectra and variability
• The Variability of the Narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxies from the PanSTARRS's View
• Brightness and colour variability in NLSy1s
• Long term Ultra-Violet Variability of Seyfert galaxies
• A Comparison of Properties of Quasars with and without Rapid Broad Absorption Line Variability
• Optical variability of eight FRII-type quasars with 13-yr photometric light curves
• Identifying Changing-Look AGN Transitions in Light Curve Data with the Zwicky Transient Facility
• The possible long-term periodic variability of the extremely luminous quasar WISE J090924.01+000211.1