arXiv subjects

Karan Dogra

Publications and source records attributed to Karan Dogra.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

22 Newly Identified Repeating Changing-look AGNs and Evidence for Extreme Broad-line Region Breathing

Changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL AGNs) show the appearance or disappearance of broad emission lines on timescales of years. Among them, the repeating CL (RCL) AGNs may provide a clear clue for our understanding of the CL transitions because the same nucleus crosses some physical boundaries more than once. We search for RCL AGNs in known CL-AGN samples using long-term multi-band light curves, and selected 34 candidates for spectroscopic follow-up. We confirm 25 RCL AGNs, including 22 newly identified cases. Properties of these RCL AGNs are analyzed. The observed rest-frame intervals of the second transitions are mostly 3--4 yr, while the variations of the optical light curves suggest that some transitions might occur on timescales of several months. The latest spectra show that the on/off states correspond to higher/lower Eddington-ratio, in the expected direction relative to the parent CL-AGN samples. As seven RCL AGNs are well covered by nearly continuous single-band light curves, their on/off states can be found to follow multi-year optical excursions, and their Eddington ratios vary consistently with the photometric changes. We also find that the H$\beta$-only transitions occur at higher Eddington ratios than the transitions involving both H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$, suggesting a line-dependent Broad-Line-Region (BLR) visibility threshold. These results support a picture in which different accretion-flow processes drive reversible changes in the central ionizing emissions, while the observed RCL transitions are produced by the BLR breathing across line-dependent visibility thresholds.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2026

Multi-band optical photometric variability of the blazar OJ 287 from 2015 to 2025

We present the most densely sampled multi-band optical photometric observations of the peculiar BL Lacertae object OJ 287 from 2015 to 2025 with a focus on its optical activity on diverse timescales. We present a total of 2296, 10927, 11484, and 2982 data points in B, V, R, and I bands, respectively. The densely sampled observations allow us to keep track of the source evolution that it has exhibited since the start of the predicted major optical flaring activity at the end of 2015. The study reveals clear and persistent bluer when brighter trends in both the long-term and short-term variations. Different bands were cross-correlated with discrete correlation functions, which peak at zero lag, implying co-spatial emission. Using eight optical spectra in the low flux states of OJ 287 taken from 2017 October 21 to 2017 November 22, from Steward Observatory, we estimate the central black hole mass to be at least 3.89 $\times \ \rm{10}^{9} \ \rm{M}_{\odot}$ from the [O III] line width. The emission mechanism of the binary black hole blazar, and its possible implication in various aspects of multi-messenger astronomy are briefly discussed.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

Detection of optical quasi-periodic oscillation in the blazar 3C 454.3

We analyzed 19 years of $R$-band data of the blazar 3C 454.3 from the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) archive, along with new data from its members and from public archives such as those provided by the Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS) and the Steward Observatory projects to search for quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs). We detected a QPO of $\sim$ 433 days using Lomb-Scargle periodogram, which lasted from MJD 54980--58450 as detected by the weighted wavelet Z-transform technique, making it one of the most persistent QPOs ever detected in the optical regime. The phase dispersion minimization technique was also performed to further validate this QPO claim. We detected this signal at a global significance of $2.53\sigma$ across all methodologies. To explain the observed QPO, we have considered both models focused on the accretion disk around the super-massive black hole (SMBH), and those based purely on jet emissions. Plausible jet-based models involve a shock moving down the jet in a helical magnetic field, whereas the SMBH models could involve Lense-Thirring effect-induced jet precession or dual jets in a binary SMBH system. We introduce a novel approach to distinguish genuine QPOs from spurious signals arising from annual seasonal gaps, a common limitation of ground-based observations.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Multi-band optical variability of the blazar OP 313 in the outburst state during 2024-2025

We present the analysis results of flux and spectral variability of the blazar OP 313 across intra-night to short-term timescales using BVRI photometric data, gathered over 25 nights from Nov 2024 to May 2025, using two optical telescopes in ARIES, India. The source was in an outburst state during this period. We searched for intraday variations (IDV), using two powerful statistical tests: the Power Enhanced F-test and the Nested ANOVA test. The source displayed IDV in the R band for five of the ten nights, yielding a duty cycle of 34$\%$. During the entire monitoring of the source, it showed variations of over two mag in all B, V, R, and I data bands. We obtained a variability timescale for a variable light curve, giving us an upper limit for the size of the emission region. We generated optical SEDs of the blazar for these 25 nights, fitted a power law of form $(F_\nu \propto \nu^{-\alpha_{o}})$ and found the weighted mean spectral index to be 1.471$\pm$0.004. An analysis of the color-magnitude diagram shows that, contrary to the redder-when-brighter (RWB) trend typically observed in FSRQs, this source exhibits a bluer-when-brighter (BWB) trend on short-term variability (STV) timescales - a behavior more commonly associated with BL Lac object. We explore potential physical mechanisms responsible for the observed spectral variability.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Testing Colour-magnitude Pattern as A Method in the Search for Changing-Look AGNs

We develop a simple method to search for changing-look (CL) active galactic nucleus (AGN) candidates, and conduct a test run. In this method, optical variations of AGNs are monitored and CL-AGNs may appear to have a pattern of being bluer when in brightening flare-like events. Applying this method, previously-classified type 2 AGNs that show the bluer-when-brighter (BWB) pattern are selected. Among more than ten thousands type 2 AGNs classified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we find 73 candidates with possibly the strongest BWB pattern. We note that 13 of them have previously been reported as CL-AGNs. We have observed nine candidates, and found that five among them showed the CL transition from type 2 to type 1. In addition, we also test extending the selection to previously-classified type 1 AGNs in the SDSS by finding sources with a possible redder-when-brighter pattern, but none of the three sources observed by us is found to show the transition from type 1 to type 2. We discuss the variation properties in both the success and failure cases, and plan to observe more candidates selected with the method. From the observational results, a detailed comparison between the CL-AGNs and none CL-AGNs will help quantitatively refine the selection criteria and in turn allow us to configure the general properties of CLAGNs.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

Multiband Optical Variability of the Blazar 3C 454.3 on Diverse Timescales

Due to its peculiar and highly variable nature, the blazar 3C 454.3 has been extensively monitored by the WEBT team. Here, we present for the first time these long-term optical flux and color variability results using data acquired in B, V, R, and I bands over a time span of $\sim$ 2 decades. We include data from WEBT collaborators and public archives such as SMARTS, Steward Observatory, and ZTF. The data are binned and segmented to study the source over this long term when more regular sampling was available. During our study, the long-term spectral variability reveals a redder when brighter (RWB) trend, which, however, stabilizes at a particular brightness cutoff $\sim$ 14.5 mag in the I-band, after which it saturates and evolves into a complex state. This trend indicates increasing jet emission dominance over accretion disk emission until jet emission completely dominates. Plots of the spectral index variation (following $F_{\nu} \propto \nu^{-\alpha}$) reveal a bimodal distribution using a one-day binning. These correlate with two extreme phases of 3C 454.3, an outburst or high flux state and quiescent or low flux state, which are respectively jet and accretion disk dominated. We have also conducted intra-day variability studies of nine light curves and found that six of them are variable. Discrete Correlation Function (DCF) analysis between different optical waveband pairs peak at zero lags, indicating co-spatial emission in different optical bands.

astro-ph.HE↗