Intranight Optical Variability of Radio-Quiet Weak Emission Line Quasars-IV

Abstract

We report an extension of our program to search for radio-quiet BL Lac candidates using intra-night optical variability (INOV) as a probe. The present INOV observations cover a well-defined representative set of 10 `radio-quiet weak-emission-line quasars' (RQWLQs), selected from a newly published sample of 46 such sources, derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (Data release 7). Intra-night CCD monitoring of the 10 RQWLQs was carried out in 18 sessions lasting at least 3.5 hours. For each session, differential light curves (DLCs) of the target RQWLQ were derived relative to two steady comparison stars monitored simultaneously. Combining these new data with those already published by us for 15 RQWLQs monitored in 30 sessions, we estimate an INOV duty cycle of $\sim 3\%$ for the RQWLQs, which appears inconsistent with BL Lacs. However, the observed INOV events (which occurred in just two of the sessions) are strong (with a fractional variability amplitude $\psi >$ 10\%), hence blazar-like. We briefly point out the prospects of an appreciable rise in the estimated INOV duty cycle for RQWLQs with a relatively modest increase in sensitivity for monitoring these rather faint objects.

8 pages, 2 figures, accepted in MNRAS

References in corpus (10)

• A Catalog of Quasar Properties from SDSS DR7
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• Intranight Optical Variability of Radio-Quiet Weak Emission Line Quasars
• Intranight Optical Variability of Radio-Quiet Weak Emission Line Quasars-II
• Intranight optical variability of radio-quiet BL Lacertae objects

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• Intra-night optical variability and radio characteristics of extremely radio-loud narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies
• Intra-night optical variability study of a non-jetted narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy: SDSS J163401.94+480940.1
• Evidence of jet induced optical microvariability in radio-loud Narrow Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies