The Lick AGN Monitoring Project: Photometric Light Curves and Optical Variability Characteristics

Abstract

The Lick AGN Monitoring Project targeted 13 nearby Seyfert 1 galaxies with the intent of measuring the masses of their central black holes using reverberation mapping. The sample includes 12 galaxies selected to have black holes with masses roughly in the range 10^6-10^7 solar masses, as well as the well-studied AGN NGC 5548. In conjunction with a spectroscopic monitoring campaign, we obtained broad-band B and V images on most nights from 2008 February through 2008 May. The imaging observations were carried out by four telescopes: the 0.76-m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), the 2-m Multicolor Active Galactic Nuclei Monitoring (MAGNUM) telescope, the Palomar 60-in (1.5-m) telescope, and the 0.80-m Tenagra II telescope. Having well-sampled light curves over the course of a few months is useful for obtaining the broad-line reverberation lag and black hole mass, and also allows us to examine the characteristics of the continuum variability. In this paper, we discuss the observational methods and the photometric measurements, and present the AGN continuum light curves. We measure various variability characteristics of each of the light curves. We do not detect any evidence for a time lag between the B- and V-band variations, and we do not find significant color variations for the AGNs in our sample.

16 pages, 20 figures, 8 tables, accepted for publication in ApJS

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Cited by in corpus (38)

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• Geometric and Dynamical Models of Reverberation Mapping Data
• The Structure of the Broad-Line Region In Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Dynamical Modeling of Data from the AGN10 Reverberation Mapping Campaign
• Modeling reverberation mapping data I: improved geometric and dynamical models and comparison with cross-correlation results
• The Lick AGN Monitoring Project: Velocity-Delay Maps from the Maximum-Entropy Method for Arp 151
• A Bayesian Approach to Estimate the Size and Structure of the Broad-line Region in Active Galactic Nuclei Using Reverberation Mapping Data
• The Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2011: Dynamical Modeling of the Broad-Line Region
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• The Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2011: Dynamical Modeling of the Broad Line Region in Mrk 50
• Space Telescope and Optical Reverberation Mapping Project. IX. Velocity-Delay Maps for Broad Emission Lines in NGC 5548
• Quasar Black Hole Mass Estimates in the Era of Time Domain Astronomy
• The Mass of the Black Hole in Arp 151 from Bayesian Modeling of Reverberation Mapping Data
• The Lick AGN Monitoring Project: Alternate Routes to a Broad-line Region Radius
• The Discovery of Timescale-Dependent Color Variability of Quasars
• Optical Monitoring of the Broad-Line Radio Galaxy 3C390.3
• Towards equation of state of dark energy from quasar monitoring: Reverberation strategy
• A Reverberation-Based Black Hole Mass for MCG-06-30-15
• Space Telescope and Optical Reverberation Mapping Project. XII. Broad-Line Region Modeling of NGC 5548
• Statistical Properties of Multi-epoch Spectral Variability of SDSS Stripe82 Quasars
• Constraints on the broad line region from regularized linear inversion: Velocity-delay maps for five nearby active galactic nuclei
• A Non-parametric Approach to Constrain the Transfer Function in Reverberation Mapping
• Stability of the Broad Line Region Geometry and Dynamics in Arp 151 Over Seven Years
• Improving the Flux Calibration in Reverberation Mapping by Spectral Fitting: Application to the Seyfert Galaxy MCG--6-30-15
• Variability and the size-luminosity relation of the intermediate mass AGN in NGC 4395
• Black Hole - Bulge Relationship of Post-Starburst Quasars at z \sim 0.3
• Local Active Galactic Nuclei with Large Broad-Hα Variability Reside in Red Galaxies
• Ensemble Variability of Near-Infrared-Selected Active Galactic Nuclei
• Modelling the AGN broad line region using single-epoch spectra I. The test case of Arp 151
• No Evidence for [O III] Variability in Mrk 142
• Velocity-Resolved Ionization Mapping of Broad Line Region. I. Insights into Diverse Geometry and Kinematics
• TLDR: Time Lag/Delay Reconstructor
• Optical spectral index - luminosity relation for the 17 mapped Palomar-Green quasars
• Modeling the Reverberation Response of the Broad Line Region in Active Galactic Nuclei II: Incorporating Photoionization Models
• Search of Intermediate Mass Black Holes at Low Redshift with Intra-night Variability