2004/03/01 by Z Ivezic, Ž. Ivezic, R. H. Lupton +12 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1743921304003126
2 pages, 2 color figures, "Proceedings IAU Symposium 222: The Interplay among Black Holes, Stars and ISM in Galactic Nuclei", submitted
openalex publication_date 2004/03/01 · arxiv created 2004/04/26 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
We analyze the properties of quasar variability using repeated SDSS imaging data in five UV-to-far red photometric bands, accurate to 0.02 mag, for ∼13,000 spectroscopically confirmed quasars. The observed time lags span the range from 3 hours to over 3 years, and constrain the quasar variability for rest-frame time lags of up to two years, and at rest-frame wavelengths from 1000Å to 6000Å. We demonstrate that ∼66,000 SDSS measurements of magnitude differences can be described within the measurement noise by a simple function of only three free parameters. The addition of POSS data constrains the long-term behavior of quasar variability and provides evidence for a turn-over in the structure function. This turn-over indicates that the characteristic time scale for optical variability of quasars is of the order 1 year.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstractservice.html