Searching for Mid-Infrared AGN Variability in Spitzer's IRAC Calibration Field

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

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Scientific paper

We report on a new, extremely sensitive search for mid-IR (3.6 µm) AGN variability in the calibration field for Spitzer’s IRAC telescope (the IRAC-CF). To our knowledge, mid-IR variation has never been used as a tool for finding previously undetected AGN, and the IRAC-CF is an ideal resource for performing this search. We developed a sorting algorithm to search the database of over 15,000 distinct 3.6 µm sources for those with clear intrinsic variations in brightness and investigated these individual candidates to determine whether the variation was intrinsic to the source. We found four such sources that exhibited variations on timescales of approximately one year. Planned follow-up optical, IR, and X-ray (Chandra) observations will confirm whether these four candidates are intrinsically varying. We found no sources that appeared to be intrinsically varying on shorter timescales. This research was made possible by NSF grant 9731923 and the SAO REU Summer Intern Program.

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