On the UV/Optical Variation in NGC 5548: New Evidence Against the Reprocessing Diagram

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 860; no. 1; pp. 29 - 40
• Main Authors: Zhu, Fei-Fan, Wang, Jun-Xian, Cai, Zhen-Yi, Sun, Yu-Han, Sun, Mou-Yuan, Zhang, Ji-Xian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia The American Astronomical Society 10.06.2018; IOP Publishing
• Subjects: accretion, accretion disks; Active galactic nuclei; Astrophysics; black hole physics; Color; Dependence; Galaxies; galaxies: active; galaxies: individual (NGC 5548); Light curve; Quasars; Reprocessing; Seyfert galaxies; Time

The reprocessing scenario is widely adopted in literature to explain the observed tight inter-band correlation and short lags in the UV/optical variations of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). In this work we look into the color variability of the famous Seyfert galaxy NGC 5548 with high-quality Swift m...