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Title:
The Discovery of the First ``Changing Look'' Quasar: New Insights Into the Physics and Phenomenology of Active Galactic Nucleus
Authors:
LaMassa, Stephanie M.; Cales, Sabrina; Moran, Edward C.; Myers, Adam D.; Richards, Gordon T.; Eracleous, Michael; Heckman, Timothy M.; Gallo, Luigi; Urry, C. Megan
Affiliation:
AA(Yale Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Physics Department, P.O. Box 208120, New Haven, CT 06520, USA 0000-0002-5907-3330), AB(Yale Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Physics Department, P.O. Box 208120, New Haven, CT 06520, USA; Department of Astronomy, Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160 C, Concepción, Chile), AC(Astronomy Department, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459, USA), AD(Department of Physics and Astronomy 3905, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University, Laramaie, WY 82071, USA), AE(Department of Physics, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA), AF(Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802, USA), AG(Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA), AH(Department of Astronomy & Physics, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, NS B3H 3C3, Canada), AI(Yale Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Physics Department, P.O. Box 208120, New Haven, CT 06520, USA)
Publication:
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 800, Issue 2, article id. 144, 10 pp. (2015). (ApJ Homepage)
Publication Date:
02/2015
Origin:
IOP
Astronomy Keywords:
accretion, accretion disks, line: profiles, quasars: emission lines, quasars: general, quasars: individual: SDSS J015957.64+003310.5, quasars: supermassive black holes
DOI:
10.1088/0004-637X/800/2/144
Bibliographic Code:
2015ApJ...800..144L

Abstract

SDSS J015957.64+003310.5 is an X-ray selected, z = 0.31 active galactic nucleus (AGN) from the Stripe 82X survey that transitioned from a Type 1 quasar to a Type 1.9 AGN between 2000 and 2010. This is the most distant AGN, and first quasar, yet observed to have undergone such a dramatic change. We re-observed the source with the double spectrograph on the Palomar 5 m telescope in 2014 July and found that the spectrum is unchanged since 2010. From fitting the optical spectra, we find that the AGN flux dropped by a factor of 6 between 2000 and 2010 while the broad Halpha emission faded and broadened. Serendipitous X-ray observations caught the source in both the bright and dim state, showing a similar 2-10 keV flux diminution as the optical while lacking signatures of obscuration. The optical and X-ray changes coincide with g-band magnitude variations over multiple epochs of Stripe 82 observations. We demonstrate that variable absorption, as might be expected from the simplest AGN unification paradigm, does not explain the observed photometric or spectral properties. We interpret the changing state of J0159+0033 to be caused by dimming of the AGN continuum, reducing the supply of ionizing photons available to excite gas in the immediate vicinity around the black hole. J0159+0033 provides insight into the intermittency of black hole growth in quasars, as well as an unprecedented opportunity to study quasar physics (in the bright state) and the host galaxy (in the dim state), which has been impossible to do in a single sources until now.
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