Radiation Pressure Instability in the "turn-on" Changing-Look AGN SDSS J1430+2303
Abstract
We aim to investigate the multi-wavelength variability, spectral, and timing properties of the changing-look active galactic nucleus (CL AGN) SDSS J1430+2303, and to explore the physical origin of its peculiar variability pattern that has not been observed before in other CL AGN. We perform a multi-wavelength analysis using optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray observations. We investigate the long-term optical color variation, characterize the evolution of the X-ray spectrum and timing properties, and construct broad-band spectral energy distributions to constrain the black hole mass, spin, and Eddington ratio. The optical flux increased by an order of magnitude over four years, accompanied by a spectral transition from Seyfert 1.9 to 1.2. The long-term color variation follows the ``bluer-when-brighter'' trend, with a color-magnitude slope consistent with previous statistical results for CL and Type 1 AGNs. During the brightened high state, the optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray light curves exhibited rapid decaying periods with progressively decreasing amplitudes, a behavior not previously reported in other CL AGNs. X-ray spectral analysis reveals a remarkably weak soft excess that declines more steeply than the hard X-rays as the total luminosity decreases. X-ray timing analysis shows a nearly constant break frequency and a hard lag at ∼10−4 Hz during the luminosity decline, suggesting a stable disk--corona geometry. Broad-band spectral energy distribution fitting constrains the black hole mass to MBH=3.8−19.5×107 M⊙ and favors a high spin (a≳0.77), while the correspondingly low Eddington ratio can account for the observed weak soft excess. We propose that the observed multi-wavelength decaying periods and their progressively decreasing amplitudes are associated with a shrinking unstable zone driven by radiation-pressure instability in the accretion disk.
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BibTeX
@misc{he2026radiation,
title = {{Radiation Pressure Instability in the "turn-on" Changing-Look AGN SDSS J1430+2303}},
author = {Han He and Bei You and Marzena Śniegowska and Bożena Czerny and Claudio Ricci and Xinwu Cao},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.06802},
eprint = {2606.06802},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.06802},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Radiation Pressure Instability in the "turn-on" Changing-Look AGN SDSS J1430+2303
AU - Han He
AU - Bei You
AU - Marzena Śniegowska
AU - Bożena Czerny
AU - Claudio Ricci
AU - Xinwu Cao
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/16
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.06802
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.06802
AB - We aim to investigate the multi-wavelength variability, spectral, and timing properties of the changing-look active galactic nucleus (CL AGN) SDSS J1430+2303, and to explore the physical origin of its peculiar variability pattern that has not been observed before in other CL AGN. We perform a multi-wavelength analysis using optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray observations. We investigate the long-term optical color variation, characterize the evolution of the X-ray spectrum and timing properties, and construct broad-band spectral energy distributions to constrain the black hole mass, spin, and Eddington ratio. The optical flux increased by an order of magnitude over four years, accompanied by a spectral transition from Seyfert 1.9 to 1.2. The long-term color variation follows the ``bluer-when-brighter'' trend, with a color-magnitude slope consistent with previous statistical results for CL and Type 1 AGNs. During the brightened high state, the optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray light curves exhibited rapid decaying periods with progressively decreasing amplitudes, a behavior not previously reported in other CL AGNs. X-ray spectral analysis reveals a remarkably weak soft excess that declines more steeply than the hard X-rays as the total luminosity decreases. X-ray timing analysis shows a nearly constant break frequency and a hard lag at ∼10^−4 Hz during the luminosity decline, suggesting a stable disk--corona geometry. Broad-band spectral energy distribution fitting constrains the black hole mass to M_BH=3.8−19.5×10^7 M_⊙ and favors a high spin (a≳0.77), while the correspondingly low Eddington ratio can account for the observed weak soft excess. We propose that the observed multi-wavelength decaying periods and their progressively decreasing amplitudes are associated with a shrinking unstable zone driven by radiation-pressure instability in the accretion disk.
ER -