The Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS) - What is causing Mrk1018's return to the shadows after 30 years?

Abstract

We recently discovered that the active galactic nucleus (AGN) of Mrk 1018 has changed optical type again after 30 years as a type 1 AGN. Here we combine Chandra, NuStar, Swift, Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observations to explore the cause of this change. The 2-10keV flux declines by a factor of ~8 between 2010 and 2016. We show with our X-ray observation that this is not caused by varying neutral hydrogen absorption along the line-of-sight up to the Compton-thick level. The optical-UV spectral energy distributions are well fit with a standard geometrically thin optically thick accretion disc model that seems to obey the expected $L\sim T^4$ relation. It confirms that a decline in accretion disc luminosity is the primary origin for the type change. We detect a new narrow-line absorber in Lya blue-shifted by ~700km/s with respect to the systemic velocity of the galaxy. This new Lya absorber could be evidence for the onset of an outflow or a companion black hole with associated gas that could be related to the accretion rate change. However, the low column density of the absorber means that it is not the direct cause for Mrk 1018's changing-look nature.

arXiv comment4 pages, 4 figures, Published in A&A

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• Explaining changing-look AGN with state transition triggered by rapid mass accretion rate drop
• A Mid-IR Selected Changing-Look Quasar and Physical Scenarios for Abrupt AGN Fading
• Changing-Look Quasar Candidates: First Results from Follow-up Spectroscopy of Highly Optically Variable Quasars
• iPTF Discovery of the Rapid "Turn On" of a Luminous Quasar
• Extreme AGN variability: evidence of magnetically elevated accretion?
• The 450 days X-ray monitoring of the changing-look AGN 1ES 1927+654
• Polarization of changing-look quasars
• Distinguishing Tidal Disruption Events from Impostors
• Probing the Physics of Narrow Line Regions in Active Galaxies IV: Full data release of The Siding Spring Southern Seyfert Spectroscopic Snapshot Survey (S7)
• Magnetic flux inversion in a peculiar changing look AGN
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• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Accretion and Broad Emission Line Physics from a Hypervariable Quasar
• Identification of SDSSJ141324.27+530527.0 as A New "Changing-Look" Quasar with a "Turn-on" Transition
• BASS XXXIX: Swift-BAT AGN with changing-look optical spectra
• Recoiling supermassive black hole in changing-look AGN Mrk 1018
• The Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS): IFU survey data and the BH mass dependence of long-term AGN variability
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• MUSE observations of a changing-look AGN I: The re-appearance of the broad emission lines
• A magnetic accretion disk-outflow model for changing look active galactic nuclei
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• Insight Into "Changing-Look" AGN Mrk 1018 from the Fe K$\alpha$ Line: The Reprocessing Gas Has Yet to Fully Respond to the Fading of the AGN
• Rapid Luminosity Decline and Subsequent Reformation of the Innermost Dust Distribution in the Changing-look AGN Mrk 590
• Long-term and multi-wavelength evolution of a changing-look AGN Mrk 1018
• History and destiny of an emerging early-type galaxy: New IFU insights on the major-merger remnant NGC7252
• The Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS): Mrk 1018 halts dimming and experiences strong short-term variability
• A forward modelling approach to AGN variability -- Method description and early applications
• Improving the selection of changing-look AGNs through multi-wavelength photometric variability
• An X-ray view of central engines of low luminosity quasars (LLQSO) in the local Universe
• Joint NuSTAR and Chandra analysis of the obscured quasar in IC 2497 - Hanny's Voorwerp system
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• Tracking the state transitions in changing-look active galactic nuclei through their polarized-light echoes
• The relation between quasars' optical spectra and variability
• A VLBI Proper Motion Analysis of the Recoiling Supermassive Black Hole Candidate Mrk 1018
• Extreme variability quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Dark Energy Survey
• A radio, optical, UV and X-ray view of the enigmatic changing look Active Galactic Nucleus 1ES~1927+654 from its pre- to post-flare states