A structure function analysis of vst-cosmos agn

Abstract

We present our sixth work in a series dedicated to variability studies of active galactic nuclei (AGN), based on the survey of the COSMOS field by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST). Its 54 r-band visits over 3.3 yr and single-visit depth of 24.6 r-band mag make this dataset a valuable scaled-down version that can help forecast the performance of the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).This work is centered on the analysis of the structure function (SF) of VST-COSMOS AGN, investigating possible differences in its shape and slope related to how the AGN were selected, and explores possible connections between the AGN ensemble variability and the black-hole mass, accretion rate, bolometric luminosity, redshift, and obscuration of the source.