Optical variability of AGN in the PTF/iPTF survey

Abstract

We characterize the optical variability of quasars in the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) and Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) surveys. We re-calibrate the $r$-band light curves for $\sim$28,000 luminous, broad-line AGNs from the SDSS, producing a total of $\sim$2.4 million photometric data points. We utilize both the structure function (SF) and power spectrum density (PSD) formalisms to search for links between the optical variability and the physical parameters of the accreting supermassive black holes that power the quasars. The excess variance (SF${}^2$) of the quasar sample tends to zero at very short time separations, validating our re-calibration of the time-series data. We find that the the amplitude of variability at a given time-interval, or equivalently the time-scale of variability to reach a certain amplitude, is most strongly correlated with luminosity with weak or no dependence on black hole mass and redshift. For a variability level of SF($\tau$)=0.07 mag, the time-scale has a dependency of $\tau \propto L^{0.4}$. This is broadly consistent with the expectation from a simple Keplerian accretion disk model, which provides $\tau \propto L^{0.5}$. The PSD analysis also reveals that many quasar light curves are steeper than a damped random walk. We find a correlation between the steepness of the PSD slopes, specifically the fraction of slopes steeper than 2.5, and black hole mass, although we cannot exclude the possibility that luminosity or Eddington ratio are the drivers of this effect. This effect is also seen in the SF analysis of the (i)PTF data, and in a PSD analysis of quasars in the SDSS Stripe 82.

arXiv comment21 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (52)

• A Catalog of Quasar Properties from SDSS DR7
• The Palomar Transient Factory: System Overview, Performance and First Results
• An Observational Determination of the Bolometric Quasar Luminosity Function
• Are the Variations in Quasar Optical Flux Driven by Thermal Fluctuations?
• Exploring the Optical Transient Sky with the Palomar Transient Factory
• Modeling the Time Variability of SDSS Stripe 82 Quasars as a Damped Random Walk
• Active Galactic Nuclei as scaled-up Galactic black holes
• Toward the Standard Population Synthesis Model of the X-Ray Background: Evolution of X-Ray Luminosity and Absorption Functions of Active Galactic Nuclei Including Compton-Thick Populations
• The Ensemble Photometric Variability of ~25000 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• A possible close supermassive black-hole binary in a quasar with optical periodicity
• Quantifying Quasar Variability As Part of a General Approach To Classifying Continuously Varying Sources
• A systematic search for close supermassive black hole binaries in the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey
• A Description of Quasar Variability Measured Using Repeated SDSS and POSS Imaging
• False periodicities in quasar time-domain surveys
• Flexible and Scalable Methods for Quantifying Stochastic Variability in the Era of Massive Time-Domain Astronomical Data Sets
• Feedback from Central Black Holes in Elliptical Galaxies: Two-dimensional Models Compared to One-dimensional Models
• A Population of Short-Period Variable Quasars from PTF as Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidates
• Kepler Observations of Rapid Optical Variability in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Black Hole Growth to z = 2 - I: Improved Virial Methods for Measuring M_BH and L/L_Edd
• X-ray variability of 104 active galactic nuclei. XMM-Newton power-spectrum density profiles
• Optical Variability in Active Galactic Nuclei: Starbursts or Disk Instabilities?
• Quasar Accretion Disks Are Strongly Inhomogeneous
• Selecting Quasars by their Intrinsic Variability
• On the use of structure functions to study blazar variability: caveats and problems
• The Palomar Transient Factory photometric calibration
• Revisiting Stochastic Variability of AGNs with Structure Functions
• Are the Variability Properties of the Kepler AGN Light Curves Consistent with a Damped Random Walk?
• On the variability of quasars: a link between Eddington ratio and optical variability?
• Quasar Optical Variability in the Palomar-QUEST Survey
• Pan-STARRS1 variability of XMM-COSMOS AGN. II. Physical correlations and power spectrum analysis
• The correlations between optical variability and physical parameters of quasars in SDSS Stripe 82
• QSO variability: probing the Starburst model
• Quasar Spectral Slope Variability in the Optical Band
• Spectral variability of quasars from multi-epoch photometric data in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82
• The dependence of quasar variability on black hole mass
• A VLA search for 5 GHz radio transients and variables at low Galactic latitudes
• Discovery of a ~5 day characteristic timescale in the Kepler power spectrum of Zw 229-15
• Multiwavelength Monitoring of the Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxy Akn 564. II. Ultraviolet Continuum and Emission-line Variability
• PTF1 J071912.13+485834.0: An outbursting AM CVn system discovered by a synoptic survey
• IPAC Image Processing and Data Archiving for the Palomar Transient Factory
• AGN evolution from a galaxy evolution viewpoint
• Long Term Variability of SDSS Quasars
• Assessment of stochastic and deterministic models of 6304 quasar lightcurves from SDSS Stripe 82
• Measuring Quasar Variability with Pan-STARRS1 and SDSS
• Timescale of variation and the size of the accretion disc in active galactic nuclei
• Variable Faint Optical Sources Discovered by Comparing POSS and SDSS Catalogs
• The Origin of UV-optical Variability in AGN and Test of Disc Models: XMM-Newton and ground based observations of NGC4395
• SUDARE-VOICE variability-selection of Active Galaxies in the Chandra Deep Field South and the SERVS/SWIRE region
• The QUEST-La Silla AGN Variability Survey
• Statistical Searches for Microlensing Events in Large, Non-Uniformly Sampled Time-Domain Surveys: A Test Using Palomar Transient Factory Data
• Extensive X-ray variability studies of NGC 7314 using long XMM-Newton observations
• Structure Function and Variability Mechanism of Quasars from SDSS Stripe 82

Cited by in corpus (81)

• Active Galactic Nuclei: what's in a name?
• Alert Classification for the ALeRCE Broker System: The Light Curve Classifier
• Stochastic modelling of star-formation histories II: star-formation variability from molecular clouds and gas inflow
• The Kepler Light Curves of AGN: A Detailed Analysis
• The Diversity and Variability of Star Formation Histories in Models of Galaxy Evolution
• A new class of flares from accreting supermassive black holes
• Stochastic modeling of star-formation histories I: the scatter of the star-forming main sequence
• A search for optical AGN variability in 35,000 low-mass galaxies with the Palomar Transient Factory
• Improving Damped Random Walk parameters for SDSS Stripe 82 Quasars with Pan-STARRS1
• Optical Variability of Quasars with 20-Year Photometric Light Curves
• BASS XXV: DR2 Broad-line Based Black Hole Mass Estimates and Biases from Obscuration
• AGN Variability Analysis Handbook
• The last migration trap of compact objects in AGN accretion disc
• Examining AGN UV/optical Variability Beyond the Simple Damped Random Walk
• Did ASAS-SN Kill the Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidate PG1302-102?
• What does Civλ1549 tell us about the physical driver of the Eigenvector Quasar Sequence?
• The QUEST-La Silla AGN variability survey: connection between AGN variability and black hole physical properties
• Extracting Information from AGN Variability
• Candidate Periodically Variable Quasars from the Dark Energy Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Testing the relativistic Doppler boost hypothesis for supermassive black hole binary candidates
• Distinguishing Tidal Disruption Events from Impostors
• A model for AGN variability on multiple timescales
• Exploring Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey V: First Year Results
• Near Infrared Variability of obscured and unobscured X-ray selected AGN in the COSMOS field
• Searching for changing-state AGNs in massive datasets -- I: applying deep learning and anomaly detection techniques to find AGNs with anomalous variability behaviours
• Deep modeling of quasar variability
• The Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS): IFU survey data and the BH mass dependence of long-term AGN variability
• The ensemble photometric variability of over $10^5$ quasars in the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Short time-scale optical variability properties of the largest AGN sample observed with Kepler/K2
• A structure function analysis of VST-COSMOS AGN
• A Luminous Transient Event in a Sample of WISE-Selected Variable AGN
• Properties of AGN Multiband Optical Variability in the HSC SSP Transient Survey
• Dwarf AGNs from Variability for the Origins of Seeds (DAVOS): Intermediate-mass black hole demographics from optical synoptic surveys
• The QUEST-La Silla AGN Variability Survey: selection of AGN candidates through optical variability
• Methods of Reverberation Mapping. I. Time-lag Determination by Measures of Randomness
• The LSST era of supermassive black holes accretion-disk reverberation mapping
• Optical Variability of the Dwarf AGN NGC 4395 from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
• Evolution of quasar stochastic variability along its main sequence
• A forward modelling approach to AGN variability -- Method description and early applications
• AT 2021loi: A Bowen Fluorescence Flare with a Rebrightening Episode, Occurring in a Previously-Known AGN
• Modeling Quasar UV/Optical Variability with the Corona-heated Accretion-disk Reprocessing (CHAR) Model
• A Method to Measure the Unbiased Decorrelation Timescale of the AGN Variable Signal from Structure Functions
• Intra-Night Optical monitoring of three γ-ray detected Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies
• An FMOS Survey of moderate-luminosity broad-line AGN in COSMOS, SXDS and E-CDF-S
• The WISSH quasars project XI. The mean Spectral Energy Distribution and Bolometric Corrections of the most luminous quasars
• Modeling photometric reverberation mapping data for the next generation of big data surveys. Quasar accretion disks sizes with the LSST
• Testing the relativistic Doppler boost hypothesis for the binary candidate quasar PG1302-102 with multi-band Swift data
• Universality in the Random Walk Structure Function of Luminous Quasi-Stellar Objects
• Ensemble power spectral density of SDSS quasars in UV/optical bands
• Modeling the Variability of Active Galactic Nuclei by Infinite Mixture of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck(OU) Processes
• Detailed accretion history of the supermassive black hole in NGC 5972 over the past $\gtrsim$10${}^4$ years through the extended emission line region
• On possible proxies of AGN light curves cadence selection in future time domain surveys
• Discovering Strongly-lensed QSOs From Unresolved Light Curves
• Continuum optical-UV and X-ray variability of AGN: current results and future challenges
• A new timescale-mass scaling for the optical variation of active galactic nuclei across the intermediate-mass to supermassive scales
• Variable AGN in the GALEX Time Domain Survey
• Investigating the Theory of Propagating Fluctuations with Numerical Models of Stochastic Accretion Discs
• Individual optical variability of Active Galactic Nuclei from the MEXSAS2 sample
• Dust Dynamics in AGN Winds: A New Mechanism For Multiwavelength AGN Variability
• A Mid-infrared Flare in the Active Galaxy MCG-02-04-026: Dust Echo of a Nuclear Transient Event
• Transient radio emission from low-redshift galaxies at z<0.3 revealed by VLASS and FIRST surveys
• Black hole virial masses from single-epoch photometry: the miniJPAS test case
• Finding of a population of active galactic nuclei showing a significant luminosity decline in the past $\sim 10^{3-4}$ yrs
• A new 2D stochastic methodology for simulating variable accretion discs: propagating fluctuations and epicyclic motion
• Examining AGN UV/Optical Variability Beyond the Simple Damped Random Walk. II. Insights from 22 Years Observations of SDSS, PS1 and ZTF
• Disentangling the optical AGN and Host-galaxy luminosity with a probabilistic Flux Variation Gradient
• A Gaussian process cross-correlation approach to time delay estimation in active galactic nuclei
• Properties of a Previously Unidentified Instrumental Signature in $\text{Kepler/K2}$ that was Confused for AGN Variability
• Observational nonstationarity of AGN variability: The only way to go is down!
• Multi-epoch intra-night optical monitoring of 8 radio-quiet BL Lac candidates
• A Sample Bias in Quasar Variability Studies
• Temperature Profiles of Accretion Disks in Luminous Active Galactic Nuclei derived from Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Variability
• Processing GOTO data with the Rubin Observatory LSST Science Pipelines II: Forced Photometry and light curves
• Discovery of two quasars at $z=5$ from the OGLE Survey
• Photometric variability in star-forming galaxies as evidence for low-mass AGN and a precursor to quenching
• On the Origin of the Strong Optical Variability of Emission-line Galaxies
• A Unified Interpretation of Supernova, GRB, and QSO Time Dilation Signals in a Generalized Cosmological Time Framework
• AGN variability in the age of VRO
• Optical variability of eight FRII-type quasars with 13-yr photometric light curves
• Intranight optical monitoring of the rare quasar J0950+5128, the brightest known candidate for transition from radio-quiet to radio-loud state
• Optical Variability Structure Function of Low-Luminosity AGN using ATLAS Lightcurves