Time-Delay Recovery in AGN Reverberation Mapping via Mutual Information

Abstract

Active galactic nuclei exhibit complex, nonlinear multiwavelength variability that standard cross-correlation techniques, sensitive only to linear covariance, may fail to capture fully. We apply time-lagged Mutual Information (MI) lag estimation, via the Kraskov-Stoegbauer-Grassberger $k$-nearest-neighbour estimator ($k=5$) with a 150-iteration Random Subset Selection bootstrap, to the light curves of four Seyfert galaxies (Mrk 509, NGC 5548, NGC 4151, and NGC 4593) monitored across eight energy bands by Swift. In the UV/optical regime the MI estimator successfully reproduces the inter-band disc reprocessing lags established by the interpolated cross-correlation function, with performance degrading toward the optical where low variability amplitude produces poorly defined MI peaks. In the X-ray bands, where the physical X-ray/UV coupling is known to be weak, the estimator fails to recover consistent lags across the sample, with the notable exception of NGC 4593. Contextualising these outcomes within the multifractal characterisation of our previous work, we discuss how MI performance relates to the multifractal spectral width $\Delta \alpha$ of each band, and we propose $\Delta \alpha$ as a candidate diagnostic for anticipating where MI-based reverberation mapping is likely to succeed or fail in multiband datasets of active galactic nuclei.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in MNRAS. 16 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables