Probing Spectroscopic Variability of Galaxies & Narrow-Line Active Galactic Nuclei in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

TL;DR

This study investigates the spectroscopic variability of galaxies and narrow-line AGNs using multi-epoch SDSS data, finding minimal variability over ~700 days and setting upper limits on AGN flux contributions.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale measurement of spectroscopic variability in narrow-line AGNs and improves spectrophotometric calibration techniques for SDSS data.

Findings

No significant continuum variability detected in narrow-line AGNs.

Upper limit of ~30% on the flux variation from AGN activity.

Minimal variability observed over timescales up to 700 days.

Abstract

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 AGN to be composed mainly of stellar light and non-variable on the time-scales of months to years. In this work we probe the spectroscopic variability of galaxies and narrow-line AGNs using the multi-epoch data in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 6. The sample contains 18,435 sources for which there exist pairs of spectroscopic observations (with a maximum separation in time of ~700 days) covering a wavelength range of 3900-8900 angstrom. 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 two. 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 log10([NII]/Halpha) and log10([OIII]/Hbeta), 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 varying spectral component, presumably related to AGN activities, and that of host galaxy to be ~30%. We provide the corresponding upper limits for other spectral classes, including those from the BPT diagram, eClass galaxy classification, stars and quasars.