The extremes of AGN variability: outbursts, deep fades, changing looks, exceptional spectral states, and semi-periodicities

TL;DR

This paper explores the most extreme cases of AGN variability, including outbursts, spectral changes, and semi-periodic signals, providing new insights into the physics and mechanisms driving these phenomena.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive classification of changing-look AGN phenomena and discusses new multiwavelength observations, especially of the binary SMBH candidate OJ 287, advancing understanding of AGN variability mechanisms.

Findings

Distinct intrinsic variability mechanisms inferred from spectral responses.

Identification of different classes of changing-look AGN, including frozen-look types.

Constraints on binary SMBH models from recent OJ 287 observations.

Abstract

The extremes of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) variability offer valuable new insights into the drivers and physics of AGN. We discuss some of the most extreme cases of AGN variability; the highest amplitudes, deep minima states, extreme spectral states, Seyfert-type changes, and semi-periodic signals, including new X-ray observations. The properties of changing-look (CL) AGN are briefly reviewed and a classification scheme is proposed which encompasses the variety of CL phenomena; distinguishing slow and fast events, repeat events, and frozen-look AGN which do not show any emission-line response. Long-term light curves that are densely covered over multiple years, along with follow-up spectroscopy, are utilized to gain insight into the underlying variability mechanisms including accretion disk and broad-line region physics. Remarkable differences are seen, for instance, in the optical spectral response to extreme outbursts, implying distinct intrinsic variability mechanisms. Furthermore, we discuss methods for distinguishing between CL AGN and CL look-alike events (tidal disruption events or supernovae in dense media). Finally, semi-periodic light curve variability is addressed and the latest multiwavelength (MWL) light curve of the binary supermassive black hole (SMBH) candidate OJ 287 from the MOMO project is presented. Recent results from that project have clearly established the need for new binary SMBH modelling matching the tight new constraints from observations, including the measurement of a low (primary) SMBH mass of ~10^8 Msun which also implies that OJ 287 is no longer in the regime of near-future pulsar timing arrays.