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Title: The Kepler Light Curves of AGN: A Detailed Analysis

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [6]
  1. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Kavli Inst. for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
  2. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Dept. of Astronomy
  3. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  4. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  5. NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Mountain View, CA (United States)
  6. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). NASA Exoplanet Science Inst.
+ Show Author Affiliations

Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of 21 light curves of Type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGN) from the Kepler spacecraft. First, we describe the necessity and development of a customized pipeline for treating Kepler data of stochastically variable sources like AGN. We then present the light curves, power spectral density functions (PSDs), and flux histograms. The light curves display an astonishing variety of behaviors, many of which would not be detected in ground-based studies, including switching between distinct flux levels. Six objects exhibit PSD flattening at characteristic timescales that roughly correlate with black hole mass. These timescales are consistent with orbital timescales or free-fall accretion timescales. We check for correlations of variability and high-frequency PSD slope with accretion rate, black hole mass, redshift, and luminosity. We find that bolometric luminosity is anticorrelated with both variability and steepness of the PSD slope. We do not find evidence of the linear rms–flux relationships or lognormal flux distributions found in X-ray AGN light curves, indicating that reprocessing is not a significant contributor to optical variability at the 0.1%–10% level.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1438562
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal (Online) Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 857; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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The first XMM-Newton slew survey catalogue: XMMSL1 text January 2008
On the time variability of geometrically-thin black hole accretion disks I : the search for modes in simulated disks text January 2008
The Palomar Transient Factory: System Overview, Performance and First Results text January 2009
Estimating Black Hole Masses in Active Galactic Nuclei Using the MgII 2800 Emission Line text January 2009
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance text January 2010
Kepler Input Catalog: Photometric Calibration and Stellar Classification text January 2011
Broad-Line Reverberation in the Kepler-Field Seyfert Galaxy Zw 229-015 text January 2011
Is Quasar Optical Variability a Damped Random Walk? text January 2012
X-ray variability of 104 active galactic nuclei. XMM-Newton power-spectrum density profiles text January 2012
The correlations between optical variability and physical parameters of quasars in SDSS Stripe 82 text January 2012
Discovery of a ~5 day characteristic timescale in the Kepler power spectrum of Zw 229-15 text January 2014
Tidal disruption of stars by supermassive black holes: Status of observations preprint January 2015
KSwAGS: A Swift X-ray and UV Survey of the Kepler Field. I text January 2015
Pan-STARRS1 variability of XMM-COSMOS AGN. II. Physical correlations and power spectrum analysis text January 2015
Revisiting Stochastic Variability of AGNs with Structure Functions text January 2016
Optical variability of AGN in the PTF/iPTF survey text January 2016
The flux-dependent amplitude of broadband noise variability in X-ray binaries and active galaxies text January 2001
Variability of accretion flow in the core of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 4151 text January 2001
Measuring the broadband power spectra of active galactic nuclei with RXTE text January 2002
On characterising the variability properties of X-ray light curves from active galaxies text January 2003
The Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB) Survey of Galactic HI: Final data release of the combined LDS and IAR surveys with improved stray-radiation corrections text January 2005
The dependence of quasar variability on black hole mass text January 2006
Active Galactic Nuclei as scaled-up Galactic black holes text January 2006
X-Ray Fluctuations from Locally Unstable Advection-Dominated Disks text January 1996
QSO variability: probing the Starburst model text January 1996
Quantifying Rapid Variability in Accreting Compact Objects preprint January 1997
Long-term optical variability properties of the Palomar-Green quasars text January 1999

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Studies in Astronomical Time-series Analysis. VII. An Enquiry Concerning Nonlinearity, the rms–Mean Flux Relation, and Lognormal Flux Distributions journal June 2020
The diversity of AGN variability: Some highlights and challenges preprint January 2019
The remarkable X-ray variability of IRAS 13224–3809 – I. The variability process journal September 2018
Multicomponent power-density spectra of Kepler AGNs, an instrumental artefact or a physical origin? journal November 2018
The nature of the soft excess and spectral variability in the Seyfert 1 galaxy Zw 229.015 journal July 2019
Deviations from normal distributions in artificial and real time series: a false positive prescription journal August 2019
On reverberation mapping lag uncertainties journal December 2019
Spectral energy distributions of candidate periodically variable quasars: testing the binary black hole hypothesis journal December 2019
The performance of photometric reverberation mapping at high redshift and the reliability of damped random walk models journal December 2019
Non-stationary variability in accreting compact objects journal February 2019
The remarkable X-ray variability of IRAS 13224-3809 - I. The variability process text January 2019
Kinematic Signatures of Reverberation Mapping of Close Binaries of Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei journal August 2018
The QUEST–La Silla AGN Variability Survey: Connection between AGN Variability and Black Hole Physical Properties journal September 2018
Jet Radiation Properties of 4C +49.22: from the Core to Large-scale Knots journal September 2018
Evolution of Quasar Stochastic Variability along Its Main Sequence journal October 2018
Radio-loud Active Galactic Nucleus Variability from Three-dimensional Propagating Relativistic Jets journal December 2018
Measuring the Variability in K2 Optical Light Curves of the Binary Black Hole Candidate OJ 287 and Other Fermi Active Galactic Nuclei in 2014–2015 journal June 2019
Stingray : A Modern Python Library for Spectral Timing journal August 2019
A Forward Modeling Approach to AGN Variability--Method Description and Early Applications journal September 2019
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Comparison of Lag Measurement Methods with Simulated Observations journal October 2019
Optical Variability Modeling of Newly Identified Blazar Candidates behind Magellanic Clouds journal January 2020
Quasar Accretion Disk Sizes from Continuum Reverberation Mapping in the DES Standard-star Fields journal January 2020
Observational Nonstationarity of AGN Variability: The Only Way to Go Is Down! journal January 2020
The QUEST-La Silla AGN variability survey: connection between AGN variability and black hole physical properties text January 2018
Quasar Accretion Disk Sizes from Continuum Reverberation Mapping in the DES Standard Star Fields text January 2018
Non-stationary variability in accreting compact objects text January 2019
Spectral Energy Distributions of Candidate Periodically-Variable Quasars: Testing the Binary Black Hole Hypothesis text January 2019
On Reverberation Mapping Lag Uncertainties text January 2019
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Comparison of Lag Measurement Methods with Simulated Observations text January 2019
A forward modelling approach to AGN variability -- Method description and early applications text January 2019
Optical variability modeling of newly identified blazar candidates behind Magellanic Clouds text January 2019
Observational nonstationarity of AGN variability: The only way to go is down! text January 2020

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
accretion
accretion disks
galaxies: Seyfert
galaxies: active
quasars: general