On X-ray variability in narrow line and broad line AGNs

Abstract

We assembled a sample of broad line and narrow lines AGNs observed by ASCA, whose excess variances have been determined. The central black hole masses in this sample can be obtained from the reverberation mapping method and the width of H$β$ emission line. Using the black hole masses and the bolometric luminosity, the Eddington ratio can also be obtained. We confirmed the strong anti-correlation between X-ray variability and the central black mass founded by Lu & Yu. We further found that narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) also follow this relation with a larger scatter and there is only a weak correlation between the X-ray variability and the Eddington ratio, which suggest that rapid variability and narrow lines in NLS1s are mainly due to small central black holes in NLS1s, not the difference of circumnuclear gas around NLS1s. A strong correlation was found between the hard X-ray photon index and the Eddington ratio. If the suggestion of two distinct accretion classes, namely ADAF and thin disk accretion, in AGNs (Lu & Yu) is correct, the strong photon index-Eddington ration correlation showed that there exists a kind of two zone accretion disk, in which the outer zone is a thin disk, and the inner zone is an ADAF disk. Otherwise, the accretion process is the thin disk accretion and the ADAF accretion is not required.