activity
20172026
most citedHow far is quasar UV/optical variability from damped random walk at low frequency?

47 citations · 126 across the 22 of their papers we have counts for

collaborators

24 papers

astro-ph.GA2026

The Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Reverberation Mapping Project: Scientific Overview and Sample Characteristics

Hengxiao Guo, Jiancheng Wu, Wenwen Zuo +38

Recent discoveries with the James Webb Space Telescope of massive black holes at high redshift have highlighted fundamental questions about black hole seed formation and the coevol…

astro-ph.HE2026

X-ray Fourier lag-frequency spectra modulated by stochastic turbulent acceleration in the jets of high-frequency-peaked BL Lac

Guang-Cheng Xiao, Wen Hu, Da-Guo Jiang +4

X-ray interband time lags are key diagnostics of jet physics and are frequently detected in high-frequency peaked BL Lac (HBL) objects at different epochs with various X-ray telesc…

astro-ph.GA2026

The Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Reverberation Mapping Project: Stable Optical Continuum Lags of an IMBH in the Dwarf Galaxy NGC 4395 Over Years

Yu Pan, Hengxiao Guo, Chenxu Liu +15

NGC 4395 is a nearby dwarf spiral galaxy hosting an active galactic nucleus (AGN) powered by an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH, --). Re…

astro-ph.HE2025

A UV to X-Ray View of Soft Excess in Type 1 Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Broadband Correlations

Shi-Jiang Chen, Jun-Xian Wang, Jia-Lai Kang +5

The physical origin of soft X-ray excess (SE) is a long lasting question, with two prevailing theories -- ``warm corona'' and ``ionized reflection'' -- dominating the discussion. I…

astro-ph.GA2025

Discovery of Repeating Transitions in 16 Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei

Qian Dong, Zhi-Xiang Zhang, Wei-Min Gu +5

The repeating changing-look active galactic nuclei (RCL AGNs) exhibit multiple appearances and disappearances of broad emission lines (BELs), whose underlying mechanism remains a p…

astro-ph.GA2025

Baseline-Aware Dependence fitting for DAmping Timescales (BADDAT): A Nearly Unbiased Approach to Constraining Optical Variability Dependence on Physical Properties of Active Galactic Nuclei

Ruisong Xia, Zhen-Yi Cai, Yongquan Xue +7

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) exhibit stochastic optical variability, commonly characterized by a damped random walk. The damping timescale is of particular interest because it is…

astro-ph.GA2025

Interband Lag Variability in Active Galactic Nuclei across ZTF Data from Multiple Years

Zhen-Bo Su, Zhen-Yi Cai, Hengxiao Guo +2

Interband lags in the optical continua of active galactic nuclei (AGN) have been observed over years of monitoring, yet their physical origins remain unclear. While variable interb…

astro-ph.GA2025

A Sandwich Model for Changing-Look AGNs

Qian-Qi Ma, Wei-Min Gu, Zhen-Yi Cai +4

The spectral variability of changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL-AGNs) occurred on timescales of years to tens of years, posing a significant challenge to the standard thin dis…

astro-ph.GA2025

The Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Reverberation Mapping Project: First Detection of Mid-Infrared Lags in Prototypical IMBHs in NGC 4395 and POX 52

Jingbo Sun, Hengxiao Guo, Wenwen Zuo +25

The search for robust evidence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) is crucial for understanding black hole seeding process and the formation of supermassive black holes in the…

astro-ph.HE2024★ 6 cited

A UV to X-ray view of soft excess in type 1 AGNs: I. sample selection and spectral profile

Shi-Jiang Chen, Jun-Xian Wang, Jia-Lai Kang +5

A core sample of 59 unobscured type 1 AGNs with simultaneous XMM-Newton X-ray and UV observations is compiled from archive to probe the nature of soft X-ray excess (SE). In the fir…

astro-ph.GA2024★ 5 cited

The Composite Spectral Energy Distribution of Quasars is Surprisingly Universal Since Cosmic Noon

Zhen-Yi Cai

Leveraging the photometric data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), we construct mean/median spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for unique…

astro-ph.GA2024

Could the inter-band lag of active galactic nucleus vary randomly?

Zhen-Bo Su, Zhen-Yi Cai, Jun-Xian Wang +18

The inter-band lags among the optical broad-band continua of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) have been intensively explored over the past decade. However, the nature of the lags rema…

astro-ph.HE2024

Nucleosynthesis contribution of neutrino-dominated accretion flows to the solar neighborhood

Yan-Qing Qi, Tong Liu, Mouyuan Sun +1

The elemental abundances of stars reflect the complex enrichment history of the galaxy. To explore and explain the metal enrichment history of the cosmic environment near our solar…

astro-ph.HE2024★ 1 cited

Unprecedented Continuum Time Delay Variation Phenomenon in an Active Supermassive Black Hole

Shuying Zhou, Mouyuan Sun, Hai-Cheng Feng +12

Resolving the accretion disks and broad line regions (BLRs) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can probe the physics behind supermassive black holes (SMBHs) fueling and weigh SMBHs.…

astro-ph.HE2024

Integrated Study of X-ray Spectrum and Time Lags for HBL Mrk 421 within the Framework of the Multiple-Zone Leptonic Model

Wen Hu, Jia-Lai Kang, Zhen-Yi Cai +3

We present the timing analysis of 10 archived \XMM observations with an exposure of ks of Markarian 421. Mrk 421 is the brightest high-frequency-peaked BL Lac object (HBL) em…

astro-ph.GA2024

A surprising excess of radio emission in extremely stable quasars: a unique clue to jet launching?

Wen-Yong Kang, Jun-Xian Wang, Zhen-Yi Cai +6

Quasars are generally divided into jetted radio-loud and non-jetted radio-quiet ones, but why only 10% quasars are radio loud has been puzzling for decades. Other than jet-induced-…

astro-ph.GA2024★ 13 cited

A new timescale-mass scaling for the optical variation of active galactic nuclei across the intermediate-mass to supermassive scales

Zhen-Bo Su, Zhen-Yi Cai, Mouyuan Sun +3

Variability of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) has long been servicing as an essential avenue of exploring the accretion physics of black hole (BH). There are two commonly used metho…

astro-ph.GA2024★ 7 cited

Optical Continuum Reverberation Mapping of a Candidate IMBH in a Nearby Seyfert 1 Galaxy

Wenwen Zuo, Hengxiao Guo, Jingbo Sun +25

To investigate the short-term variability and determine the size of the optical continuum emitting region of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), we carried out high-cadence, mul…

astro-ph.HE2024

Sizes of active galactic nuclei inhomogeneous disks -- large in microlensing, small in reverberation mapping

Guowei Ren, Mouyuan Sun, Jun-Xian Wang +1

Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) turbulence can drive significant temperature fluctuations in the accretion disk of an active galactic nucleus (AGN). As a result, the disk can be highly…

astro-ph.HE2024

How long will the quasar UV/optical flickering be damped?

Shuying Zhou, Mouyuan Sun, Zhen-Yi Cai +3

The UV/optical light curves of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) are commonly described by the Damped Random Walk (DRW) model. However, the physical interpretation of the damping times…

astro-ph.GA2023★ 7 cited

Extreme Variability Quasars in Their Various States. II: Spectral Variation Revealed with Multi-epoch Spectra

Wenke Ren, Junxian Wang, Zhenyi Cai +1

We previously built a sample of 14,012 extremely variable quasars (EVQs) based on SDSS and Pan-STARRS1 photometric observations. In this work we present the spectral fitting to the…

astro-ph.GA2023★ 15 cited

How can the optical variation properties of active galactic nuclei be unbiasedly measured?

Xu-Fan Hu, Zhen-Yi Cai, Jun-Xian Wang

The variability of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is ubiquitous but has not yet been understood. Measuring the optical variation properties of AGNs, such as variation timescale and…

astro-ph.GA2023★ 25 cited

A universal average spectral energy distribution for quasars from optical to extreme ultraviolet

Zhen-Yi Cai, Jun-Xian Wang

The well-known anti-correlation between the optical/ultraviolet (UV) emission line equivalent widths of active galactic nuclei and the continuum luminosity (the so-called Baldwin e…

astro-ph.GA2017★ 47 cited

How far is quasar UV/optical variability from damped random walk at low frequency?

Hengxiao Guo, Junxian Wang, Zhengyi Cai +1

Studies have shown that UV/optical light curves of quasars can be described with the prevalent damped random walk (DRW, also known as Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process) model. A white noi…