Abstract.
The spectral variability of a sample of 44 Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasars (FSRQs) and 18 Steep-Spectrum Radio Quasars (SSRQs) in SDSS stripe 82 region is investigated. Twenty-five of 44 FSRQs show a bluer-when-brighter trend (BWB), while only one FSRQ shows a redder-when-brighter trend, which is in contrast to our previous results. Eight of 18 SSRQs display a BWB. We found an anticorrelation between the Eddington ratio and the variability amplitude in the r band for SSRQs, which is similar to that in radio-quiet AGNs. This implies that the thermal emission from the accretion disk may be responsible for the variability in SSRQs. The spectral variability from SDSS multi-epoch spectroscopy also shows BWB for several SSRQs, which is consistent with that from photometry.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bian, W.-H., Zhang, L., Green, R., Hu, C. 2012, ApJ, 759, 88.
Becker, R. H., White, R. L., Helfand, D. J. 1995, ApJ, 450, 559.
Dai, B. Z., Li, X. H., Liu, Z. M. et al. 2009, MNRAS, 392, 1181.
Fan, J. H., Xie, G. Z., Pecontal, E., Pecontal, A., Copin, Y. 1998, ApJ, 507, 173.
Gregory, P. C., Scott, W. K., Douglas, K., Condon, J. J. 1996, ApJS, 103, 427.
Griffith, M. R., Wright, A. E. 1993, AJ, 105, 1666.
Gu, M. F., Lee, C.-U., Pak, S., Yim, H. S., Fletcher, A. B. 2006, A&A, 450, 39.
Gu, M.-F., Ai, Y. L. 2011a, A&A, 528, A95.
Gu, M. F., Ai, Y. L. 2011b, A&A, 534, A59.
Guo, H. X., Gu, M. F. 2014, ApJ, submitted.
Raiteri, C. M., Villata, M., Aller, H. D. et al. 2001, A&A, 377, 396.
Rani, B., Gupta, A. C., Strigachev, A. et al. 2010, MNRAS, 404, 1992.
Schneider, D. P., Richards, G. T., Hall, P. B. et al. 2010, AJ, 139, 2360.
Villata, M., Raiteri, C. M., Kurtanidze, O. M. et al. 2002, A&A, 390, 407.
Wu, J. H. et al. 2007, AJ, 133, 1599.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the 973 Programme (No. 2009CB824800), and by the NSFC grant 11073039.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gu, M. Spectral Variability in Radio-Loud Quasars. J Astrophys Astron 35, 369–372 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12036-014-9232-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12036-014-9232-x