Quasar Optical Variability in the Palomar-QUEST Survey

TL;DR

This study analyzes optical variability in nearly 23,000 quasars from the Palomar-QUEST Survey, revealing correlations with luminosity, black hole mass, and Eddington ratio, and discussing implications for accretion disk instabilities.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis of quasar variability using a large, homogeneously calibrated dataset over multiple epochs, establishing new correlations with physical properties.

Findings

Variability amplitude decreases with optical luminosity.

Black hole mass positively correlates with variability.

Variability decreases with Eddington ratio, with a transition around 0.5.

Abstract

The ensemble variability properties of nearly 23,000 quasars are studied using the Palomar-QUEST Survey. The survey has covered 15,000 square degrees multiple times over 3.5 years using 7 optical filters, and has been calibrated specifically for variability work. Palomar-QUEST allows for the study of rare objects using multiple epochs of consistently calibrated, homogeneous data, obviating the common problem of generating comparable measurements from disparate datasets. A power law fit to the quasar structure function versus time yields an index of 0.432 +/- 0.024 for our best measured sample. We see the commonly reported anticorrelation between average optical variability amplitude and optical luminosity, and measure the logarithmic decrease in variability amplitude to scale as the logarithm of the luminosity times 0.205 +/- 0.002. Black hole mass is positively correlated with variability amplitude over three orders of magnitude in mass. Quasar variability amplitude is seen to decrease with Eddington ratio as a step function with a transition around Eddington ratio of 0.5. The higher variability at low Eddington ratios is due to excess power at timescales shorter than roughly 300 days. X-ray and radio measurements exist for subsets of the quasar sample. We observe an anticorrelation between optical variability amplitude and X-ray luminosity. No significant correlation is seen between average optical variability properties and radio luminosity. The timescales of quasar fluctuations are suggestive of accretion disk instabilities. The relationships seen between variability, Eddington ratio, and radio and X-ray emission are discussed in terms of a possible link between the behavior of quasars and black hole X-ray binaries.