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Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei

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arxiv 2211.05132 v1 pith:X762ZGTP submitted 2022-11-09 astro-ph.GA astro-ph.COastro-ph.HE

Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei

classification astro-ph.GA astro-ph.COastro-ph.HE
keywords changing-lookactivechangesclassesemissionfluxgalacticnuclei
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are known to show flux variability over all observable timescales and across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Over the past decade, a growing number of sources have been observed to show dramatic flux and spectral changes, both in the X-rays and in the optical/UV. Such events, commonly described as "changing-look AGN", can be divided into two well-defined classes. Changing-obscuration objects show strong variability of the line-of-sight column density, mostly associated with clouds or outflows eclipsing the central engine of the AGN. Changing-state AGN are instead objects in which the continuum emission and broad emission lines appear or disappear, and are typically triggered by strong changes in the accretion rate of the supermassive black hole. Here we review our current understanding of these two classes of changing-look AGN, and discuss open questions and future prospects.

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Cited by 6 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

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    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0

    X-ray emission lines and a broad iron feature emerged in changing-look AGN 1ES 1927+654 concurrently with radio-jet formation and declining ionized outflows from 2022 to 2025.

  2. Optical Variability Structure Function of Low-Luminosity AGN using ATLAS Lightcurves

    astro-ph.GA 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0

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  3. Optical Variability Structure Function of Low-Luminosity AGN using ATLAS Lightcurves

    astro-ph.GA 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    Low-luminosity AGN exhibit structure function slopes rising from 0.1 to 0.3 with black hole mass, no breaks on decadal scales, amplitude anticorrelated with luminosity and positively correlated with mass.

  4. Identifying Changing-Look AGN Transitions in Light Curve Data with the Zwicky Transient Facility

    astro-ph.GA 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    A criterion of |Δg| > 0.4 mag and |Δ(g-r)| > 0.2 mag detects photometric CL-AGN transitions in 9.6% of known hosts with 1.6% false positive rate from simulations.

  5. X-ray Absorption Variability in NGC 1142: Another Constraint on the Nature of the Torus/Broad-Line Region in Active Galactic Nuclei

    astro-ph.GA 2026-07 conditional novelty 4.5

    NGC 1142’s NH varies across nine epochs; detection probability scales with observation count, and simple cloud simulations favor many simultaneous eclipsing clouds.

  6. On the Blueprint of Active Galaxies Producing Neutrinos

    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 conditional novelty 4.0

    Neutrinos from active galaxies are produced in compact X-ray-bright coronae within about ten Schwarzschild radii of the black hole, and such sources may supply the diffuse neutrino flux.