The lick AGN monitoring project: photometric light curves and optical variability characteristics

Author Info

Jonelle L. Walsh, University of California - Irvine
Takeo Minezaki, University of Tokyo
Misty C. Bentz, University of California - Irvine
Aaron J. Barth, University of California - Irvine
Nairn Baliber, University of California - Santa Barbara
Weidong Li, University of California - Berkeley
Daniel Stern, California Institute of Technology
Vardha Nicola Bennert, University of California - Santa BarbaraFollow
Timothy M. Brown, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope
Gabriela Canalizo, University of California - Riverside
Alexei V. Filippenko, University of California - Berkeley
Elinor L. Gates, Lick Observatory
Jenny E. Greene, Princeton University
Matthew A. Malkan, University of California - Los Angeles
Yu Sakata, University of Tokyo
Rachel A. Street, University of California - Santa Barbara
Tommaso Treu, University of California - Santa Barbara
Jong-Hak Woo, University of California - Los Angeles
Yuzuru Yoshii, University of Tokyo

Recommended Citation

Published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Volume 185, Issue 1, November 1, 2009, pages 156-170.

NOTE: At the time of publication, the author Vardha Nicola Bennert was not yet affiliated with Cal Poly.

The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1088/0067-0049/185/1/156.

Abstract

The Lick AGN Monitoring Project targeted 13 nearby Seyfert 1 galaxies with the intent of measuring the masses of their central black holes using reverberation mapping. The sample includes 12 galaxies selected to have black holes with masses roughly in the range 10⁶-10⁷ M _☉, as well as the well-studied active galactic nucleus (AGN) NGC 5548. In conjunction with a spectroscopic monitoring campaign, we obtained broadband B and V images on most nights from 2008 February through 2008 May. The imaging observations were carried out by four telescopes: the 0.76 m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope, the 2 m Multicolor Active Galactic Nuclei Monitoring telescope, the Palomar 60 inch (1.5 m) telescope, and the 0.80 m Tenagra II telescope. Having well-sampled light curves over the course of a few months is useful for obtaining the broad-line reverberation lag and black hole mass, and also allows us to examine the characteristics of the continuum variability. In this paper, we discuss the observational methods and the photometric measurements, and present the AGN continuum light curves. We measure various variability characteristics of each of the light curves. We do not detect any evidence for a time lag between the B- and V-band variations, and we do not find significant color variations for the AGNs in our sample.

Disciplines

Physics

Copyright

2009 IOP Publishing.