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arXiv · 1106.3997

Hard X-ray Variability of the Brightest Swift/BAT AGN

Claudio Ricci·Stephane Paltani·Simona Soldi·Thierry J. -L. Courvoisier
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Abstract

Variability is one of the hallmarks of Active Galactic Nuclei. The Burst Alert Telescope onboard of Swift, with its homogeneous coverage of the sky is a formidable tool to study variability at hard X-rays. We present here the analysis of the 1-month binned Swift/BAT lightcurves of the 20 brightest Active Galactic Nuclei in the hard X-ray sky. The sample consists of 2 blazars, 3 radio galaxies, 6 Seyfert 1/1.5s, 8 Seyfert 2s and 1 Narrow Line Seyfert 1. We found that all the objects show variability, and most of them have a value of the fractional root mean squared variability amplitude of Fvar \sim 0.2 - 0.3. We did not find any significant correlation of Fvar with the column density or the luminosity in our sample.

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Claudio Ricci, Stephane Paltani, Simona Soldi, Thierry J. -L. Courvoisier. 2011-06-20. Hard X-ray Variability of the Brightest Swift/BAT AGN. https://arxiv.org/abs/1106.3997

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