PROBING SPECTROSCOPIC VARIABILITY OF GALAXIES AND NARROW-LINE ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, 3701 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- Astronomy Department, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States)
- Saint Vincent College, 300 Fraser Purchase Road, Latrobe, PA 15650 (United States)
- Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 (United States)
- Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Eoetvoes Lorand University, H-1117 Budapest (Hungary)
- Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astronomie, Koenigstuhl 17, D-69117, Heidelberg (Germany)
Under the unified model for active galactic nuclei (AGNs), narrow-line (Type 2) AGNs are, in fact, broad-line (Type 1) AGNs but each with a heavily obscured accretion disk. We would therefore expect the optical continuum emission from Type 2 AGNs to be composed mainly of stellar light and nonvariable on the timescales of months to years. In this work we probe the spectroscopic variability of galaxies and narrow-line AGNs using the multiepoch data in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6. The sample contains 18,435 sources for which there exist pairs of spectroscopic observations (with a maximum separation in time of {approx}700 days) covering a wavelength range of 3900-8900 A. To obtain a reliable repeatability measurement between each spectral pair, we consider a number of techniques for spectrophotometric calibration resulting in an improved spectrophotometric calibration of a factor of 2. From these data we find no obvious continuum and emission-line variability in the narrow-line AGNs on average-the spectroscopic variability of the continuum is 0.07 {+-} 0.26 mag in the g band and, for the emission-line ratios log{sub 10}([N II]/H{alpha}) and log{sub 10}([O III]/H{beta}), the variability is 0.02 {+-} 0.03 dex and 0.06 {+-} 0.08 dex, respectively. From the continuum variability measurement we set an upper limit on the ratio between the flux of the varying spectral component, presumably related to AGN activities, and that of the host galaxy to be {approx}30%. We provide the corresponding upper limits for other spectral classes, including those from the BPT diagram, eClass galaxy classification, stars, and quasars.
- OSTI ID:
- 21255715
- Journal Information:
- Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 137, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/137/6/5120; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1538-3881
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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