2025/04/01 by Alexander Messick, Messick, Alexander, Vivienne Baldassare +27
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2504.00971
openalex publication_date 2025/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We conduct an analysis of over 60,000 dwarf galaxies (7<=log(M_*/M_\odot)<=10) in search of photometric variability indicative of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Using data from the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE), a time domain survey on the Pan-STARRS telescopes, we construct light curves for each galaxy in up to four bands (griz) where available. We select objects with AGN-like variability by fitting each light curve to a damped random walk (DRW) model. After quality cuts and removing transient contaminants, we identify 1100 variability-selected AGN candidates (representing 2.4% of the available sample). We analyze their spectra to measure various emission lines and calculate black hole (BH) masses, finding general agreement with previously found mass scaling-relations and nine potential IMBH candidates. Furthermore, we re-analyze the light curves for our candidates to calculate the dampening timescale tauDRW associated with the DRW and see a similar correlation between this value and the BH mass. Finally, we estimate the active fraction as a function of stellar mass and see evidence that active fraction increases with host mass.