arXiv subjects

Scott F. Anderson

Publications and source records attributed to Scott F. Anderson.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

The Seventeenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: Complete Release of MaNGA, MaStar and APOGEE-2 Data

This paper documents the seventeenth data release (DR17) from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys; the fifth and final release from the fourth phase (SDSS-IV). DR17 contains the complete release of the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey, which reached its goal of surveying over 10,000 nearby galaxies. The complete release of the MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar) accompanies this data, providing observations of almost 30,000 stars through the MaNGA instrument during bright time. DR17 also contains the complete release of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) survey which publicly releases infra-red spectra of over 650,000 stars. The main sample from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), as well as the sub-survey Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) data were fully released in DR16. New single-fiber optical spectroscopy released in DR17 is from the SPectroscipic IDentification of ERosita Survey (SPIDERS) sub-survey and the eBOSS-RM program. Along with the primary data sets, DR17 includes 25 new or updated Value Added Catalogs (VACs). This paper concludes the release of SDSS-IV survey data. SDSS continues into its fifth phase with observations already underway for the Milky Way Mapper (MWM), Local Volume Mapper (LVM) and Black Hole Mapper (BHM) surveys.

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arXiv2021

Probing the disk-corona systems and broad line regions of changing-look quasars with X-ray and optical observations

"Changing-look" quasars are a new class of highly variable active galactic nuclei that have changed their spectral type over surprisingly short timescales of just a few years. The origin of this phenomenon is debated, but is likely to reflect some change in the accretion flow. To investigate the disk-corona systems in these objects, we measure optical/UV-X-ray spectral indices ($α_{\rm OX}$) and Eddington ratios ($λ_{\rm Edd}$) of ten previously-discovered changing-look quasars at two or more epochs. By comparing these data with simulated results based on the behavior of X-ray binaries, we find possible similarities in spectral indices below 1% Eddington ratio. We further investigate the Eddington ratios of changing-look quasars before and after their spectral type changes, and find that changing-look quasars cross the 1% Eddington ratio boundary when their broad emission lines disappear/emerge. This is consistent with the disk-wind model as the origin of broad emission lines.

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arXiv2020

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Sixteenth Data Release

We present the final Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) quasar catalog from Data Release 16 of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS). This catalog comprises the largest selection of spectroscopically confirmed quasars to date. The full catalog includes two sub-catalogs: a "superset" of all SDSS-IV/eBOSS objects targeted as quasars containing 1,440,615 observations and a quasar-only catalog containing 750,414 quasars, including 225,082 new quasars appearing in an SDSS data release for the first time, as well as known quasars from SDSS-I/II/III. We present automated identification and redshift information for these quasars alongside data from visual inspections for 320,161 spectra. The quasar-only catalog is estimated to be 99.8% complete with 0.3% to 1.3% contamination. Automated and visual inspection redshifts are supplemented by redshifts derived via principal component analysis and emission lines. We include emission line redshifts for H$α$, H$β$, Mg II, C III], C IV, and Ly$α$. Identification and key characteristics generated by automated algorithms are presented for 99,856 Broad Absorption Line quasars and 35,686 Damped Lyman Alpha quasars. In addition to SDSS photometric data, we also present multi-wavelength data for quasars from GALEX, UKIDSS, WISE, FIRST, ROSAT/2RXS, XMM-Newton, and Gaia. Calibrated digital optical spectra for these quasars can be obtained from the SDSS Science Archive Server.

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arXiv2020

The Sixteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: First Release from the APOGEE-2 Southern Survey and Full Release of eBOSS Spectra

This paper documents the sixteenth data release (DR16) from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys; the fourth and penultimate from the fourth phase (SDSS-IV). This is the first release of data from the southern hemisphere survey of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2); new data from APOGEE-2 North are also included. DR16 is also notable as the final data release for the main cosmological program of the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), and all raw and reduced spectra from that project are released here. DR16 also includes all the data from the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) and new data from the SPectroscopic IDentification of ERosita Survey (SPIDERS) programs, both of which were co-observed on eBOSS plates. DR16 has no new data from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey (or the MaNGA Stellar Library "MaStar"). We also preview future SDSS-V operations (due to start in 2020), and summarize plans for the final SDSS-IV data release (DR17).

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arXiv2019

The Analogous Structure of Accretion Flows in Supermassive and Stellar Mass Black Holes: New Insights from Faded Changing-Look Quasars

Despite their factor of ~10^8 difference in black hole mass, several lines of evidence suggest possible similarities between black hole accretion flows in active galactic nuclei (AGN) and Galactic X-ray binaries. However, it is still unclear whether the geometry of the disk-corona system in X-ray binaries directly scale up to AGN, and whether this analogy still holds in different accretion states. We test this AGN/X-ray binary analogy, by comparing the observed correlations between the UV-to-X-ray spectral index (alpha_OX) and Eddington ratio in AGN to those predicted from observations of X-ray binary outbursts. This approach probes the geometry of their disk-corona systems as they transition between different accretion states. We use new Chandra X-ray and ground-based rest-UV observations of faded 'changing-look' quasars to extend this comparison to lower Eddington ratios of <10^-2, where observations of X-ray binaries predict a softening of alpha_OX in AGN. We find that the observed correlations between alpha_OX and Eddington ratio of AGN displays a remarkable similarity to accretion state transitions in prototypical X-ray binary outbursts, including an inversion of this correlation at a critical Eddington ratio of ~10^-2. Our results suggest that the structures of black hole accretion flows directly scale across a factor of ~10^8 in black hole mass and across different accretion states, enabling us to apply theoretical models of X-ray binaries to explain AGN phenomenology.

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arXiv2019

Tracing the AGN/X-ray Binary Analogy with Light Curves of Individual Changing-Look AGN

Physical models of X-ray binary outbursts can aid in understanding the origin of 'changing-look' active galactic nuclei (AGN), if we can establish that these two black hole accretion phenomena are analogous. Previously, studies of the correlation between the UV-to-X-ray spectral index alpha_OX and Eddington ratio using single-epoch observations of changing-look AGN samples have revealed possible similarities to the spectral evolution of outbursting X-ray binaries. However, direct comparisons using multi-epoch UV/X-ray light curves of individual changing-look AGN undergoing dramatic changes in Eddington ratio have been scarce. Here, we use published Swift UV/X-ray light curves of two changing-look AGN (NGC 2617 and ZTF18aajupnt) to examine the evolution of their alpha_OX values during outburst. We show that the combination of these two changing-look AGN can trace out the predicted spectral evolution from X-ray binary outbursts, including the inversion in the evolution of alpha_OX as a function of Eddington ratio. We suggest that the spectral softening that is observed to occur below a critical Eddington ratio in both AGN and X-ray binaries is due to reprocessing of Comptonized X-ray emission by the accretion disk, based on the X-ray to UV reverberation lags previously observed in NGC 2617. Our results suggest that the physical processes causing the changing-look AGN phenomenon are similar to those in X-ray binary outbursts.

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arXiv2019

A Chandra Study: Are Dwarf Carbon Stars Spun Up and Rejuvenated by Mass Transfer?

Carbon stars (with C/O> 1) were long assumed to all be giants, because only AGB stars dredge up significant carbon into their atmospheres. The case is nearly iron-clad now that the formerly mysterious dwarf carbon (dC) stars are actually far more common than C giants, and have accreted carbon-rich material from a former AGB companion, yielding a white dwarf and a dC star that has gained both significant mass and angular momentum. Some such dC systems have undergone a planetary nebula phase, and some may evolve to become CH, CEMP, or Ba giants. Recent studies indicate that most dCs are likely from older, metal-poor kinematic populations. Given the well-known anti-correlation of age and activity, dCs would not be expected to show significant X-ray emission related to coronal activity. However, accretion spin-up might be expected to rejuvenate magnetic dynamos in these post mass-transfer binary systems. We describe our Chandra pilot study of six dCs selected from the SDSS for Halpha emission and/or a hot white dwarf companion, to test whether their X-ray emission strength and spectral properties are consistent with a rejuvenated dynamo. We detect all 6 dCs in the sample, which have X-ray luminosities ranging from logLx= 28.5 - 29.7, preliminary evidence that dCs may be active at a level consistent with stars that have short rotation periods of several days or less. More definitive results require a sample of typical dCs with deeper X-ray observations to better constrain their plasma temperatures.

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arXiv2019

The Time-Domain Spectroscopic Survey: Radial Velocity Variability in Dwarf Carbon Stars

Dwarf carbon (dC) stars, main sequence stars showing carbon molecular bands, were initially thought to be an oxymoron since only AGB stars dredge carbon into their atmospheres. Mass transfer from a former AGB companion that has since faded to a white dwarf seems the most likely explanation. Indeed, a few types of giants known to show anomalous abundances --- notably, the CH, Ba and CEMP-s stars --- are known to have a high binary frequency. The dC stars may be the enhanced-abundance progenitors of most, if not all, of these systems, but this requires demonstrating a high binary frequency for dCs. Here, for a sample of 240 dC stars targeted for repeat spectroscopy by the SDSS-IV's Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey, we analyze radial velocity variability to constrain the binary frequency and orbital properties. A handful of dC systems show large velocity variability ($>$100 km s$^{-1}$). We compare the dCs to a control sample with a similar distribution of magnitude, color, proper motion, and parallax. Using MCMC methods, we use the measured $Δ$RV distribution to estimate the binary fraction and the separation distribution assuming both a unimodal and bimodal distribution. We find the dC stars have an enhanced binary fraction of 95\%, consistent with them being products of mass transfer. These models result in mean separations of less than 1 AU corresponding to periods on the order of 1 year. Our results support the conclusion that dC stars form from close binary systems via mass transfer.

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arXiv2019

Gemini Imaging of the Host Galaxies of Changing-Look Quasars

Changing-look quasars are a newly-discovered class of luminous active galactic nuclei that undergo rapid ($\lesssim$10 year) transitions between Type 1 and Type 1.9/2, with an associated change in their continuum emission. We characterize the host galaxies of four faded changing-look quasars using broadband optical imaging. We use \textit{gri} images obtained with the Gemini Multi Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini North to characterize the surface brightness profiles of the quasar hosts and search for [O III] $\lambda4959,\lambda5007$ emission from spatially extended regions, or voorwerpjes, with the goal of using them to examine past luminosity history. Although we do not detect, voorwerpjes surrounding the four quasar host galaxies, we take advantage of the dim nuclear emission to characterize the colors and morphologies of the host galaxies. Three of the four galaxies show morphological evidence of merger activity or tidal features in their residuals. The three galaxies which are not highly distorted are fit with a single Sérsic profile to characterize their overall surface brightness profiles. The single-Sérsic fits give intermediate Sérsic indices between the $n=1$ of disk galaxies and the $n=4$ of ellipticals. On a color-magnitude diagram, our changing-look quasar host galaxies reside in the blue cloud, with other AGN host galaxies and star-forming galaxies. On a color-Sérsic index diagram the changing-look quasar hosts reside with other AGN hosts in the "green valley". Our analysis suggests that the hosts of changing-look quasars are predominantly disrupted or merging galaxies that resemble AGN hosts, rather than inactive galaxies.

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arXiv2019

Changing-Look Quasar Candidates: First Results from Follow-up Spectroscopy of Highly Optically Variable Quasars

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) that show strong rest-frame optical/UV variability in their blue continuum and broad line emission are classified as "changing-look" AGN, or at higher luminosities changing look quasars (CLQs). These surprisingly large and sometimes rapid transitions challenge accepted models of quasar physics and duty cycles, offer several new avenues for study of quasar host galaxies, and open a wider interpretation of the cause of differences between broad and narrow line AGN. To better characterize extreme quasar variability, we present follow-up spectroscopy as part of a comprehensive search for CLQs across the full SDSS footprint using spectroscopically confirmed quasars from the SDSS DR7 catalog. Our primary selection requires large-amplitude (|Δg|>1 mag, |Δr|>0.5 mag) variability over any of the available time baselines probed by the SDSS and Pan-STARRS 1 surveys. We employ photometry from the Catalina Sky Survey to verify variability behavior in CLQ candidates where available, and confirm CLQs using optical spectroscopy from the William Herschel, MMT, Magellan, and Palomar telescopes. For our adopted S/N threshold on variability of broad Hβemission, we find 17 new CLQs, yielding a confirmation rate of >~ 20%. These candidates are at lower Eddington ratio relative to the overall quasar population which supports a disk-wind model for the broad line region. Based on our sample, the CLQ fraction increases from 10% to roughly half as the continuum flux ratio between repeat spectra at 3420 Angstroms increases from 1.5 to 6. We release a catalog of over 200 highly variable candidates to facilitate future CLQ searches.

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arXiv2018

The Fifteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: First Release of MaNGA Derived Quantities, Data Visualization Tools and Stellar Library

Twenty years have passed since first light for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Here, we release data taken by the fourth phase of SDSS (SDSS-IV) across its first three years of operation (July 2014-July 2017). This is the third data release for SDSS-IV, and the fifteenth from SDSS (Data Release Fifteen; DR15). New data come from MaNGA - we release 4824 datacubes, as well as the first stellar spectra in the MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar), the first set of survey-supported analysis products (e.g. stellar and gas kinematics, emission line, and other maps) from the MaNGA Data Analysis Pipeline (DAP), and a new data visualisation and access tool we call "Marvin". The next data release, DR16, will include new data from both APOGEE-2 and eBOSS; those surveys release no new data here, but we document updates and corrections to their data processing pipelines. The release is cumulative; it also includes the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since first light. In this paper we describe the location and format of the data and tools and cite technical references describing how it was obtained and processed. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has also been updated, providing links to data downloads, tutorials and examples of data use. While SDSS-IV will continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V (2020-2025), we end this paper by describing plans to ensure the sustainability of the SDSS data archive for many years beyond the collection of data.

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arXiv2018

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pachón in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$σ$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $δ<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.

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arXiv2018

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.

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arXiv2017

The Time-Domain Spectroscopic Survey: Target Selection for Repeat Spectroscopy

As astronomers increasingly exploit the information available in the time domain, spectroscopic variability in particular opens broad new channels of investigation. Here we describe the selection algorithms for all targets intended for repeat spectroscopy in the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), part of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV. Also discussed are the scientific rationale and technical constraints leading to these target selections. The TDSS includes a large "Repeat Quasar Spectroscopy" (RQS) program delivering ~13,000 repeat spectra of confirmed SDSS quasars, and several smaller "Few-Epoch Spectroscopy" (FES) programs targeting specific classes of quasars as well as stars. The RQS program aims to provide a large and diverse quasar data set for studying variations in quasar spectra on timescales of years, a comparison sample for the FES quasar programs, and opportunity for discovering rare, serendipitous events. The FES programs cover a wide variety of phenomena in both quasars and stars. Quasar FES programs target broad absorption line quasars, high signal-to-noise ratio normal broad line quasars, quasars with double-peaked or very asymmetric broad emission line profiles, binary supermassive black hole candidates, and the most photometrically variable quasars. Strongly variable stars are also targeted for repeat spectroscopy, encompassing many types of eclipsing binary systems, and classical pulsators like RR Lyrae. Other stellar FES programs allow spectroscopic variability studies of active ultracool dwarf stars, dwarf carbon stars, and white dwarf/M dwarf spectroscopic binaries. We present example TDSS spectra and describe anticipated sample sizes and results.

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arXiv2017

SDSS-V: Pioneering Panoptic Spectroscopy

SDSS-V will be an all-sky, multi-epoch spectroscopic survey of over six million objects. It is designed to decode the history of the Milky Way, trace the emergence of the chemical elements, reveal the inner workings of stars, and investigate the origin of planets. It will also create an integral-field spectroscopic map of the gas in the Galaxy and the Local Group that is 1,000x larger than the current state of the art and at high enough spatial resolution to reveal the self-regulation mechanisms of galactic ecosystems. SDSS-V will pioneer systematic, spectroscopic monitoring across the whole sky, revealing changes on timescales from 20 minutes to 20 years. The survey will thus track the flickers, flares, and radical transformations of the most luminous persistent objects in the universe: massive black holes growing at the centers of galaxies. The scope and flexibility of SDSS-V will be unique among extant and future spectroscopic surveys: it is all-sky, with matched survey infrastructures in both hemispheres; it provides near-IR and optical multi-object fiber spectroscopy that is rapidly reconfigurable to serve high target densities, targets of opportunity, and time-domain monitoring; and it provides optical, ultra-wide-field integral field spectroscopy. SDSS-V, with its programs anticipated to start in 2020, will be well-timed to multiply the scientific output from major space missions (e.g., TESS, Gaia, eROSITA) and ground-based projects. SDSS-V builds on the 25-year heritage of SDSS's advances in data analysis, collaboration infrastructure, and product deliverables. The project is now refining its science scope, optimizing the survey strategies, and developing new hardware that builds on the SDSS-IV infrastructure. We present here an overview of the current state of these developments as we seek to build our worldwide consortium of institutional and individual members.

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arXiv2017

Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe

We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially-resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median redshift of z = 0.03). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between redshifts z = 0.6 and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGN and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5-meter Sloan Foundation Telescope at Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5-meter du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in July 2016.

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arXiv2017

X-ray Insights into the Nature of Quasars with Redshifted Broad Absorption Lines

We present $Chandra$ observations of seven broad absorption line (BAL) quasars at $z=0.863$-2.516 with redshifted BAL troughs (RSBALs). Five of our seven targets were detected by $Chandra$ in 4-13 ks exposures with ACIS-S. The $α_{\rm ox}$ values, $Δα_{\rm ox}$ values, and spectral energy distributions of our targets demonstrate they are all X-ray weak relative to expectations for non-BAL quasars, and the degree of X-ray weakness is consistent with that of appropriately-matched BAL quasars generally. Furthermore, our five detected targets show evidence for hard X-ray spectral shapes with a stacked effective power-law photon index of $Γ_{\rm eff}=0.5^{+0.5}_{-0.4}$. These findings support the presence of heavy X-ray absorption ($N_{\rm H}\approx 2 \times 10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$) in RSBAL quasars, likely by the shielding gas found to be common in BAL quasars more generally. We use these X-ray measurements to assess models for the nature of RSBAL quasars, finding that a rotationally-dominated outflow model is favored while an infall model also remains plausible with some stipulations. The X-ray data disfavor a binary quasar model for RSBAL quasars in general.

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arXiv2016

Detection of Time Lags Between Quasar Continuum Emission Bands based on Pan-STARRS Light-curves

We study the time lags between the continuum emission of quasars at different wavelengths, based on more than four years of multi-band ($g$, $r$, $i$, $z$) light-curves in the Pan-STARRS Medium Deep Fields. As photons from different bands emerge from different radial ranges in the accretion disk, the lags constrain the sizes of the accretion disks. We select 240 quasars with redshifts $z \approx 1$ or $z \approx 0.3$ that are relatively emission line free. The light curves are sampled from day to month timescales, which makes it possible to detect lags on the scale of the light crossing time of the accretion disks. With the code JAVELIN, we detect typical lags of several days in the rest frame between the $g$ band and the $riz$ bands. The detected lags are $\sim 2-3$ times larger than the light crossing time estimated from the standard thin disk model, consistent with the recently measured lag in NGC5548 and micro-lensing measurements of quasars. The lags in our sample are found to increase with increasing luminosity. Furthermore, the increase in lags going from $g-r$ to $g-i$ and then to $g-z$ is slower than predicted in the thin disk model, particularly for high luminosity quasars. The radial temperature profile in the disk must be different from what is assumed. We also find evidence that the lags decrease with increasing line ratios between ultraviolet FeII lines and MgII, which may point to changes in the accretion disk structure at higher metallicity.

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