Speaker
Description
Recent advances in time-domain surveys have revealed dramatic changes to SMBH accretion and AGN appearance on surprisingly short timescales. Among those, changing-look AGNs (CL-AGNs) show the (dis)appearance of broad emission lines and/or the quasar-like continuum, on timescales of years and sometimes even months. These dramatic changes may be driven by significant changes to the accretion flow and/or circumnuclear gas, and can therefore provide key novel insights into these physical components. Among other science cases, the Black Hole Mapper (BHM) within SDSS-V is designed to detect and survey CL-AGN on multiple timescales, which can help us understand their physical nature. In this talk I will present the analysis of the largest sample of (candidate) CL-AGNs to date, obtained from the first year of (plate) SDSS-V observations. Our sample covers a broad range of timescales, redshifts, and black hole properties. Our preliminary analysis indicates that CL-AGNs occur at systems with relatively low Eddington ratios, but with no preference for certain black hole masses or AGN luminosities. Our sample will allow us to gain insights into the physical mechanisms driving CL-AGNs, with potential implications for the unified AGN model and thus for AGN demographics.
