Speaker
Description
'Changing-look quasars' (CLQs), discovered less than a decade ago, show dramatic, rapid changes in optical/UV continuum and broad line emission strength. CLQ transitions have been attributed to tidal disruption events, changes in intrinsic absorption or in accretion rate, but all these hypotheses suffer theoretical or empirical challenges. X-ray observations can clearly distinguish between scenarios. Quasars monitored spectroscopically by the SDSS-V enable real-time detection of CLQ transitions. We select targets from X-ray detected SDSS spectroscopic quasars that have been recently re-observed by SDSS-V and confirmed as CLQs. We will characterize CLQ changes in X-ray luminosity, slope, and intrinsic absorption, testing models with promising analogies to X-ray binaries using joint VLA imaging.
