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Register a new userThe Changing-Look Quasar Mrk 590 is Awakening
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Mrk 590 was originally classified as a Seyfert 1 galaxy, but then it underwent dramatic changes: the nuclear luminosity dropped by over two orders of magnitude and the broad emission lines all but disappeared from the optical spectrum. Here we present followup observations to the original discovery and characterization of this changing look active galactic nucleus (AGN). The new Chandra and HST observations from 2014 show that Mrk 590 is awakening, changing its appearance again. While the source continues to be in a low state, its soft excess has re-emerged, though not to the previous level. The UV continuum is brighter by more than a factor of two and the broad MgII emission line is present, indicating that the ionizing continuum is also brightening. These observations suggest that the soft excess is not due to reprocessed hard X-ray emission. Instead, it is connected to the UV continuum through warm Comptonization. Variability of the Fe K-alpha emission lines suggests that the reprocessing region is within about 10 light years or 3 pc of the central source. The AGN type change is neither due to obscuration, nor due to one-way evolution from type-1 to type-2, as suggested in literature, but may be related to episodic accretion events.
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We examine the long-term optical/near-infrared (NIR) flux variability of a changing-look active galactic nucleus (AGN) Mrk 590 between 1998 and 2007. Multi-band multi-epoch optical/NIR photometry data from the SDSS Stripe 82 database and the Multicolor Active Galactic Nuclei Monitoring (MAGNUM) project reveal that Mrk 590 experienced a sudden luminosity decrease during the period from 2000 to 2001. Detection of dust reverberation lag signals between $V$- and $K$-band light curves obtained by the MAGNUM project during the faint state in $2003-2007$ suggests that the dust torus innermost radius $R_text{dust}$ of Mrk 590 had become very small [$R_text{dust} simeq 32$~ light-days (lt-days)] by the year 2004 according to the aforementioned significant decrease in AGN luminosity. The $R_text{dust}$ in the faint state is comparable to the H$beta$ broad line region (BLR) radius of $R_{text{H}beta, text{BLR}} simeq 26$ lt-days measured by previous reverberation mapping observations during the bright state of Mrk 590 in $1990-1996$. These observations indicate that the innermost radius of the dust torus in Mrk 590 decreased rapidly after the AGN ultraviolet-optical luminosity drop, and that the replenishment time scale of the innermost dust distribution is less than 4 years, which is much shorter than the free fall time scale of BLR gas or dust clouds. We suggest that rapid replenishment of the innermost dust distribution can be accomplished either by new dust formation in radiatively-cooled BLR gas clouds or by new dust formation in the disk atmosphere and subsequent vertical wind from the dusty disk as a result of radiation pressure.
We investigate if the active galactic nucleus (AGN) of Mrk 590, whose supermassive black hole was until recently highly accreting, is turning off due to a lack of central gas to fuel it. We analyse new sub-arcsecond resolution ALMA maps of the $^{12}$CO(3-2) line and 344 GHz continuum emission in Mrk 590. We detect no $^{12}$CO(3-2) emission in the inner 150 pc, constraining the central molecular gas mass to $M({rm H_2}) lesssim 1.6 times 10^5, {M_{odot}}$, no more than a typical giant molecular gas cloud, for a CO luminosity to gas mass conversion factor of $alpha_{rm CO}sim 0.8,{M_{odot},rm (K ,km,s^{-1},pc^{2}})^{-1}$. However, there is still potentially enough gas to fuel the black hole for another $2.6 times 10^5$ years assuming Eddington-limited accretion. We therefore cannot rule out that the AGN may just be experiencing a temporary feeding break, and may turn on again in the near future. We discover a ring-like structure at a radius of $sim 1$ kpc, where a gas clump exhibiting disturbed kinematics and located just $sim 200$ pc west of the AGN, may be refueling the centre. Mrk 590 does not have significantly less gas than other nearby AGN host galaxies at kpc scales, confirming that gas reservoirs at these scales provide no direct indication of on-going AGN activity and accretion rates. Continuum emission detected in the central 150 pc likely originates from warm AGN-heated dust, although contributions from synchrotron and free-free emission cannot be ruled out.
Broad Balmer emission lines in active galactic nuclei (AGN) may display dramatic changes in amplitude, even disappearance and re-appearance in some sources. As a nearby galaxy at a redshift of z = 0.0264, Mrk 590 suffered such a cycle of Seyfert type changes between 2006 and 2017. Over the last fifty years, Mrk 590 also underwent a powerful continuum outburst and a slow fading from X-rays to radio wavelengths with a peak bolometric luminosity reaching about ten per cent of the Eddington luminosity. To track its past accretion and ejection activity, we performed very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations with the European VLBI Network (EVN) at 1.6 GHz in 2015. The EVN observations reveal a faint (~1.7 mJy) radio jet extending up to ~2.8 mas (projected scale ~1.4 pc) toward north, and probably resulting from the very intensive AGN activity. To date, such a parsec-scale jet is rarely seen in the known changing-look AGN. The finding of the faint jet provides further strong support for variable accretion as the origin of the type changes in Mrk 590.
We investigate the origin of the parsec-scale radio emission from the changing-look active galactic nucleus (AGN) of Mrk 590, and examine whether the radio power has faded concurrently with the dramatic decrease in accretion rates observed between the 1990s and the present. We detect a compact core at 1.6 GHz and 8.4 GHz using new Very Long Baseline Array observations, finding no significant extended, jet-like features down to $sim$1 pc scales. The flat spectral index ($alpha_{1.6}^{8.4} = 0.03$) and high brightness temperature ($T_{rm b} sim 10^{8},rm K$) indicate self-absorbed synchrotron emission from the AGN. The radio to X-ray luminosity ratio of ${rm log}(L_{rm R}/L_{rm X}) sim -5$, similar to that in coronally active stars, suggests emission from magnetized coronal winds, although unresolved radio jets are also consistent with the data. Comparing new Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array measurements with archival and published radio flux densities, we find $46%$, $34%$, and (insignificantly) $13%$ flux density decreases between the 1990s and the year 2015 at 1.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 8.4 GHz respectively. This trend, possibly due to the expansion and fading of internal shocks within the radio-emitting outflow after a recent outburst, is consistent with the decline of the optical-UV and X-ray luminosities over the same period. Such correlated variability demonstrates the AGN accretion-outflow connection, confirming that the changing-look behaviour in Mrk 590 originates from variable accretion rates rather than dust obscuration. The present radio and X-ray luminosity correlation, consistent with low/hard state accretion, suggests that the black hole may now be accreting in a radiatively inefficient mode.
If the disappearance of the broad emission lines observed in changing-look quasars were caused by the obscuration of the quasar core through moving dust clouds in the torus, high linear polarization typical of type 2 quasars would be expected. We measured the polarization of the changing-look quasar J1011+5442 in which the broad emission lines have disappeared between 2003 and 2015. We found a polarization degree compatible with null polarization. This measurement suggests that the observed change of look is not due to a change of obscuration hiding the continuum source and the broad line region, and that the quasar is seen close to the system axis. Our results thus support the idea that the vanishing of the broad emission lines in J1011+5442 is due to an intrinsic dimming of the ionizing continuum source that is most likely caused by a rapid decrease in the rate of accretion onto the supermassive black hole.
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