A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF OPTICAL/ULTRAVIOLET VARIABILITY OF NARROW-LINE SEYFERT 1 AND BROAD-LINE SEYFERT 1 ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI

The ensemble optical/ultraviolet (UV) variability of narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1)-type active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is investigated, based on a sample selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 region with multi-epoch photometric scanning data. As a comparison, a control sample of broad-line Seyfert 1 (BLS1)-type AGNs is also incorporated. To quantify properly the intrinsic variation amplitudes and their uncertainties, a novel method of parametric maximum likelihood is introduced that has, as we argued, certain virtues over previously used methods. The majority of NLS1-type AGNs exhibit significant variability on timescales from about 10 days to a few years with, however, smaller amplitudes on average compared to BLS1-type AGNs. About 20 NLS1-type AGNs that show relatively large variations are presented and may deserve future monitoring observations, for instance, reverberation mapping. The averaged structure functions of variability, constructed using the same maximum likelihood method, show remarkable similarity in shape for the two types of AGNs on timescales longer than about 10 days, which can be approximated by a power law or an exponential function. This, along with other similar properties, such as the wavelength-dependent variability, is indicative of a common dominant mechanism responsible for the long-term optical/UV variability of both NLS1- and BLS1-type AGNs. Toward the short timescales, however, there is tentative evidence that the structure function of NLS1-type AGNs continues to decline, whereas that of BLS1-type AGNs flattens with some residual variability on timescales of days. If this can be confirmed, it may suggest that an alternative mechanism, such as X-ray reprocessing, starts to dominate in BLS1-type AGNs, but not in NLS1-type AGNs, on such timescales.