Search for intranight optical variability in a large sample of intermediate-mass black holes
Abstract
Using the extensive archival database of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey, we have investigated intranight optical variability (INOV) in a large sample of low-mass active galactic nuclei (LMAGN) powered by intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). After applying a sequence of well-motivated selection filters, we constructed an unbiased, representative sample of 62 IMBHs for which r-band intranight photometric sequences are available in the ZTF database, yielding 167 sessions with a minimum duration of 2 h. By performing aperture photometry on the sequence of exposures in each session, we derived differential light curves (DLCs) of the target LMAGN relative to two carefully selected non-varying comparison stars monitored simultaneously with the LMAGN in the same exposure sequence. Application of the widely used test based on F-statistics to all these DLCs revealed no case of statistically significant INOV. We discuss this result for the present large sample of LMAGN in the context of an earlier report of INOV detections in another, albeit much smaller and differently selected, sample of LMAGN that had been monitored in targeted observations.
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BibTeX
@misc{sharma2026search,
title = {{Search for intranight optical variability in a large sample of intermediate-mass black holes}},
author = {Himanshu Sharma and Gopal-Krishna and Vibhore Negi and Hum Chand and Krishan Chand and Anshul Kumar Sharma},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.03408},
eprint = {2609.03408},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03408},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Search for intranight optical variability in a large sample of intermediate-mass black holes
AU - Himanshu Sharma
AU - Gopal-Krishna
AU - Vibhore Negi
AU - Hum Chand
AU - Krishan Chand
AU - Anshul Kumar Sharma
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/03
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.03408
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03408
AB - Using the extensive archival database of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey, we have investigated intranight optical variability (INOV) in a large sample of low-mass active galactic nuclei (LMAGN) powered by intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). After applying a sequence of well-motivated selection filters, we constructed an unbiased, representative sample of 62 IMBHs for which r-band intranight photometric sequences are available in the ZTF database, yielding 167 sessions with a minimum duration of 2 h. By performing aperture photometry on the sequence of exposures in each session, we derived differential light curves (DLCs) of the target LMAGN relative to two carefully selected non-varying comparison stars monitored simultaneously with the LMAGN in the same exposure sequence. Application of the widely used test based on F-statistics to all these DLCs revealed no case of statistically significant INOV. We discuss this result for the present large sample of LMAGN in the context of an earlier report of INOV detections in another, albeit much smaller and differently selected, sample of LMAGN that had been monitored in targeted observations.
ER -