Abstract
Rapidly growing black holes are surrounded by accretion disks that make them the brightest objects in the Universe. Their brightness is known to be variable, but the causes of this are not implied by simple disk models and still debated. Due to the small size of accretion disks and their great distance, there are no resolved images addressing the puzzle. In this work, we study the dependence of their variability on luminosity, wavelength and orbital/thermal timescale. We use over 5,000 of the most luminous such objects with light curves of almost nightly cadence from >5 years of observations by the NASA/ATLAS project, which provides 2 billion magnitude pairs for a structure function analysis. When time is expressed in units of orbital or thermal timescale in thin-disk models, we find a universal structure function, independent of luminosity and wavelength, supporting the model of magneto-rotational instabilities as a main cause. Over a >1 dex range in time, the fractional variability amplitude follows $$\log (A/{A}_{0})\simeq 1/2\times \log (\Delta t/{t}_{{{{\rm{th}}}}})$$ . Deviations from the universality may hold clues as to the structure and orientation of disks. A study of the emission variability of roughly 5,000 of the brightest quasars supports the presence of an optically thick yet geometrically thin accretion disk, and may provide a means of measuring the size and inclination of the disk.
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