Browsing by Author "Assef, Roberto J."

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    A Transient "Changing-look" Active Galactic Nucleus Resolved on Month Timescales from First-year Sloan Digital Sky Survey V Data
    (2022) Zeltyn, Grisha; Trakhtenbrot, Benny; Eracleous, Michael; Runnoe, Jessie; Trump, Jonathan R.; Stern, Jonathan; Shen, Yue; Hernandez-Garcia, Lorena; Bauer, Franz E.; Yang, Qian; Dwelly, Tom; Ricci, Claudio; Green, Paul; Anderson, Scott F.; Assef, Roberto J.; Guolo, Muryel; MacLeod, Chelsea; Davis, Megan C.; Fries, Logan; Gezari, Suvi; Grogin, Norman A.; Homan, David; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Krumpe, Mirko; LaMassa, Stephanie; Liu, Xin; Merloni, Andrea; Martinez-Aldama, Mary Loli; Schneider, Donald P.; Temple, Matthew J.; Brownstein, Joel R.; Ibarra-Medel, Hector; Burke, Jamison; Pellegrino, Craig; Kollmeier, Juna A.
    We report the discovery of a new "changing-look" active galactic nucleus (CLAGN) event, in the quasar SDSS J162829.17+432948.5 at z = 0.2603, identified through repeat spectroscopy from the fifth Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V). Optical photometry taken during 2020-2021 shows a dramatic dimming of Delta g approximate to 1 mag, followed by a rapid recovery on a timescale of several months, with the less than or similar to 2 month period of rebrightening captured in new SDSS-V and Las Cumbres Observatory spectroscopy. This is one of the fastest CLAGN transitions observed to date. Archival observations suggest that the object experienced a much more gradual dimming over the period of 2011-2013. Our spectroscopy shows that the photometric changes were accompanied by dramatic variations in the quasar-like continuum and broad-line emission. The excellent agreement between the pre- and postdip photometric and spectroscopic appearances of the source, as well as the fact that the dimmest spectra can be reproduced by applying a single extinction law to the brighter spectral states, favor a variable line-of-sight obscuration as the driver of the observed transitions. Such an interpretation faces several theoretical challenges, and thus an alternative accretion-driven scenario cannot be excluded. The recent events observed in this quasar highlight the importance of spectroscopic monitoring of large active galactic nucleus samples on weeks-to-months timescales, which the SDSS-V is designed to achieve.
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    BASS. XXV. DR2 Broad-line-based Black Hole Mass Estimates and Biases from Obscuration
    (2022) Mejía-Restrepo, Julian E.; Trakhtenbrot, Benny; Koss, Michael J.; Oh, Kyuseok; den Brok, Jakob; Stern, Daniel; Powell, Meredith C.; Ricci, Federica; Caglar, Turgay; Ricci, Claudio; Bauer, Franz Erik; Treister , Ezequiel; Harrison, Fiona A.; Urry, C. M.; Ananna, Tonima Tasnim; Asmus, Daniel; Assef, Roberto J.; Bär, Rudolf E.; Bessiere, Patricia S.; Burtscher, Leonard; Ichikawa, Kohei; Kakkad, Darshan; Kamraj, Nikita; Mushotzky, Richard; Privon, George C.; Rojas, Alejandra F.; Sani, Eleonora; Schawinski, Kevin; Veilleux, Sylvain
    We present measurements of broad emission lines and virial estimates of supermassive black hole masses (M _{BH} ) for a large sample of ultrahard X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) as part of the second data release of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS/DR2). Our catalog includes M _{BH} estimates for a total of 689 AGNs, determined from the Hα, Hβ, Mg II λ2798, and/or C_{IV} λ1549 broad emission lines. The core sample includes a total of 512 AGNs drawn from the 70 month Swift/BAT all-sky catalog. We also provide measurements for 177 additional AGNs that are drawn from deeper Swift/BAT survey data. We study the links between M _{BH} estimates and line-of-sight obscuration measured from X-ray spectral analysis. We find that broad Hα emission lines in obscured AGNs (Log(N_{H} / cm^{-2} > 22.0) are on average a factor of 8.0_{-2.4}^{+4.1} weaker relative to ultrahard X-ray emission and about 35_{-12}^{,+7} % narrower than those in unobscured sources (i.e.(Log(N_{H} / cm^{-2} > 21.5). This indicates that the innermost part of the broad-line region is preferentially absorbed. Consequently, current single-epoch M _{BH} prescriptions result in severely underestimated (>1 dex) masses for Type 1.9 sources (AGNs with broad Hα but no broad Hβ) and/or sources with Log(N_{H} / cm^{-2} >= 22.0 . We provide simple multiplicative corrections for the observed luminosity and width of the broad Hα component (LbHα and FWHMbHα) in such sources to account for this effect and to (partially) remedy M _{BH} estimates for Type 1.9 objects. As a key ingredient of BASS/DR2, our work provides the community with the data needed to further study powerful AGNs in the low-redshift universe.
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    Exploring Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey V: First Year Results
    (2024) Zeltyn, Grisha; Trakhtenbrot, Benny; Eracleous, Michael; Yang, Qian; Green, Paul; Anderson, Scott F.; LaMassa, Stephanie; Runnoe, Jessie; Assef, Roberto J.; Bauer, Franz E.; Brandt, W. N.; Davis, Megan C.; Frederick, Sara E.; Fries, Logan B.; Graham, Matthew J.; Grogin, Norman A.; Guolo, Muryel; Hernandez-Garcia, Lorena; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Krumpe, Mirko; Liu, Xin; Martinez-Aldama, Mary Loli; Ricci, Claudio; Schneider, Donald P.; Shen, Yue; Sniegowska, Marzena; Temple, Matthew J.; Trump, Jonathan R.; Xue, Yongquan; Brownstein, Joel R.; Dwelly, Tom; Morrison, Sean; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Pan, Kaike; Kollmeier, Juna A.
    "Changing-look" active galactic nuclei (CL-AGNs) challenge our basic ideas about the physics of accretion flows and circumnuclear gas around supermassive black holes. Using first-year Sloan Digital Sky Survey V (SDSS-V) repeated spectroscopy of nearly 29,000 previously known active galactic nuclei (AGNs), combined with dedicated follow-up spectroscopy, and publicly available optical light curves, we have identified 116 CL-AGNs where (at least) one broad emission line has essentially (dis-)appeared, as well as 88 other extremely variable systems. Our CL-AGN sample, with 107 newly identified cases, is the largest reported to date, and includes similar to 0.4% of the AGNs reobserved in first-year SDSS-V operations. Among our CL-AGNs, 67% exhibit dimming while 33% exhibit brightening. Our sample probes extreme AGN spectral variability on months to decades timescales, including some cases of recurring transitions on surprisingly short timescales (less than or similar to 2 months in the rest frame). We find that CL events are preferentially found in lower-Eddington-ratio (f Edd) systems: Our CL-AGNs have a f Edd distribution that significantly differs from that of a carefully constructed, redshift- and luminosity-matched control sample (Anderson-Darling test yielding p AD approximate to 6 x 10-5; median f Edd approximate to 0.025 versus 0.043). This preference for low f Edd strengthens previous findings of higher CL-AGN incidence at lower f Edd, found in smaller samples. Finally, we show that the broad Mg ii emission line in our CL-AGN sample tends to vary significantly less than the broad H beta emission line. Our large CL-AGN sample demonstrates the advantages and challenges in using multi-epoch spectroscopy from large surveys to study extreme AGN variability and physics.
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    Galaxy Spectra neural Network (GaSNet). II. Using deep learning for spectral classification and redshift predictions
    (2024) Zhong, Fucheng; Napolitano, Nicola R.; Heneka, Caroline; Li, Rui; Bauer, Franz Erik; Bouche, Nicolas; Comparat, Johan; Kim, Young-Lo; Krogager, Jens-Kristian; Longhetti, Marcella; Loveday, Jonathan; Roukema, Boudewijn F.; Rouse, Benedict L.; Salvato, Mara; Tortora, Crescenzo; Assef, Roberto J.; Cassara, Letizia P.; Costantin, Luca; Croom, Scott M.; Davies, Luke J. M.; Fritz, Alexander; Guiglion, Guillaume; Humphrey, Andrew; Pompei, Emanuela; Ricci, Claudio; Sifon, Cristobal; Tempel, Elmo; Zafar, Tayyaba
    The size and complexity reached by the large sky spectroscopic surveys require efficient, accurate, and flexible automated tools for data analysis and science exploitation. We present the Galaxy Spectra Network/GaSNet-II, a supervised multinetwork deep learning tool for spectra classification and redshift prediction. GaSNet-II can be trained to identify a customized number of classes and optimize the redshift predictions. Redshift errors are determined via an ensemble/pseudo-Monte Carlo test obtained by randomizing the weights of the network-of-networks structure. As a demonstration of the capability of GaSNet-II, we use 260k Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectra from Data Release 16, separated into 13 classes including 140k galactic, and 120k extragalactic objects. GaSNet-II achieves 92.4 per cent average classification accuracy over the 13 classes and mean redshift errors of approximately 0.23 per cent for galaxies and 2.1 per cent for quasars. We further train/test the pipeline on a sample of 200k 4MOST (4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope) mock spectra and 21k publicly released DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) spectra. On 4MOST mock data, we reach 93.4 per cent accuracy in 10-class classification and mean redshift error of 0.55 per cent for galaxies and 0.3 per cent for active galactic nuclei. On DESI data, we reach 96 per cent accuracy in (star/galaxy/quasar only) classification and mean redshift error of 2.8 per cent for galaxies and 4.8 per cent for quasars, despite the small sample size available. GaSNet-II can process similar to 40k spectra in less than one minute, on a normal Desktop GPU. This makes the pipeline particularly suitable for real-time analyses and feedback loops for optimization of Stage-IV survey observations.
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    High-quality Extragalactic Legacy-field Monitoring (HELM) with DECam: Project Overview and First Data Release
    (2024) Zhuang, Ming-Yang; Yang, Qian; Shen, Yue; Adamow, Monika; Friedel, Douglas N.; Gruendl, R. A.; Stone, Zachary; Li, Junyao; Liu, Xin; Martini, Paul; Abbott, Timothy M. C.; Anderson, Scott F.; Assef, Roberto J.; Bauer, Franz E.; Bielby, Richard; Brandt, W. N.; Burke, Colin J.; Casares, Jorge; Chen, Yu-Ching; De Rosa, Gisella; Drlica-Wagner, Alex; Dwelly, Tom; Eltvedt, Alice; Alvarez, Gloria Fonseca; Fu, Jianyang; Fuentes, Cesar; Graham, Melissa L.; Grier, Catherine J.; Golovich, Nathan; Hall, Patrick B.; Hartigan, Patrick; Horne, Keith; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Krumpe, Mirko; Li, Jennifer I.; Lidman, Chris; Malik, Umang; Mangian, Amelia; Merloni, Andrea; Ricci, Claudio; Salvato, Mara; Sharp, Rob; Trilling, David E.; Tucker, Brad E.; Wen, Di; Wideman, Zachary; Xue, Yongquan; Yu, Zhefu; Zucker, Catherine
    High-quality Extragalactic Legacy-field Monitoring (HELM) is a long-term observing program that photometrically monitors several well-studied extragalactic legacy fields with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) imager on the CTIO 4 m Blanco telescope. Since 2019 February, HELM has been monitoring regions within COSMOS, XMM-LSS, CDF-S, S-CVZ, ELAIS-S1, and SDSS Stripe 82 with few-day cadences in the (u)gri(z) bands, over a collective sky area of similar to 38 deg2. The main science goal of HELM is to provide high-quality optical light curves for a large sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and to build decades-long time baselines when combining past and future optical light curves in these legacy fields. These optical images and light curves will facilitate the measurements of AGN reverberation mapping lags, as well as studies of AGN variability and its dependencies on accretion properties. In addition, the time-resolved and coadded DECam photometry will enable a broad range of science applications from galaxy evolution to time-domain science. We describe the design and implementation of the program and present the first data release that includes source catalogs and the first similar to 3.5 yr of light curves during 2019A-2022A.