Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 455, Issue 2, Pages 1691-1701Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stv2385
Keywords
accretion, accretion discs; galaxies: active; quasars: general
Categories
Funding
- DIULS Regular project [PR15143]
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Center for High-Performance Computing at the University of Utah
- SDSS Collaboration including the Brazilian Participation Group
- Carnegie Institution for Science
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Chilean Participation Group
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
- Johns Hopkins University
- Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) / University of Tokyo
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Leibniz Institut fr Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP)
- Max-Planck-Institut fr Astrophysik (MPA, Garching)
- Max-Planck-Institut fr Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE)
- Max-Planck-Institut fr Astronomie (MPIA, Heidelberg)
- National Astronomical Observatory of China
- New Mexico State University
- New York University
- University of Notre Dame
- Observatrio Nacional do Brasil
- Ohio State University
- Pennsylvania State University
- Shanghai Astronomical Observatory
- United Kingdom Participation Group
- Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mexico
- University of Arizona
- University of Colorado Boulder
- University of Portsmouth
- University of Utah
- University of Washington
- University of Wisconsin
- Vanderbilt University
- Yale University
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NNG05GF22G]
- US National Science Foundation [AST-0909182]
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration at MIT Lincoln Laboratory under Air Force [FA8721-05-C-0002]
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We report the discovery of a new 'changing-look' quasar, SDSS J101152.98+544206.4, through repeat spectroscopy from the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey. This is an addition to a small but growing set of quasars whose blue continua and broad optical emission lines have been observed to decline by a large factor on a time-scale of approximately a decade. The 5100 angstrom monochromatic continuum luminosity of this quasar drops by a factor of > 9.8 in a rest-frame time interval of < 9.7 yr, while the broad Ha luminosity drops by a factor of 55 in the same amount of time. The width of the broad Ha line increases in the dim state such that the black hole mass derived from the appropriate single-epoch scaling relation agrees between the two epochs within a factor of 3. The fluxes of the narrow emission lines do not appear to change between epochs. The light curve obtained by the Catalina Sky Survey suggests that the transition occurs within a rest-frame time interval of approximately 500 d. We examine three possible mechanisms for this transition suggested in the recent literature. An abrupt change in the reddening towards the central engine is disfavoured by the substantial difference between the time-scale to obscure the central engine and the observed time-scale of the transition. A decaying tidal disruption flare is consistent with the decay rate of the light curve but not with the prolonged bright state preceding the decay; nor can this scenario provide the power required by the luminosities of the emission lines. An abrupt drop in the accretion rate on to the supermassive black hole appears to be the most plausible explanation for the rapid dimming.
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