Optical Variability of AGNs Monitored by the Faint Sky Variability Survey

Details Optical Variability of AGNs Monitored by the Faint Sky Variability Survey Optical Variability of AGNs Monitored by the Faint Sky Variability Survey

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002aas...20114602h&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society Meeting 201, #146.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 35, p.571

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

Variability in active galactic nuclei (AGN) can provide a means of studying the unresolved central engine, but a well time-sampled dataset is essential to provide comparison to physical models. Using the Faint Sky Variability Survey (FSVS) dataset, we investigate the optical variability on short to intermediate timescales (10s of minutes to 3 years) in the present set of 60 matched AGN and newly discovered sources.
Photometric analysis of point-like AGNs comprising a predominately radio-quiet set of quasars spanning 0.3--3.0 revealed a small fraction of sources (order of 10%) showing short, intranight and day to day variability with amplitudes of a few hundredths of a magnitude. The majority of the sources (order 80% and greater) showed longer, month to year variability up to amplitudes of half a magnitude. Quasars with low redshifts (0.3--0.5) and classified as point sources possess variability correlated with changes in the seeing profile due to the faint host galaxy. Both aperture and variable PSF photometry showed significant correlated variability amplitudes of 0.04 and 0.02 mag/arcsec respectively.
The applicability of the FSVS to study variability in AGNs in general will be discussed. In particular, relationships in variability timescales, radio strength, luminosity, and redshift will be addressed. The issue of spurious variability correlated with the seeing profile in low redshift quasar point sources will be explored. Correlated variability is of critical concern to studies to detect actual microvariability in quasars, but also presents a signature from the unresolved host galaxy in seemingly stellar sources.

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