Highly Variable Quasar Candidates Selected from 4XMM-DR13 with Machine Learning

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Hauptverfasser: Wang, Heng, Ai, Yanli, Zhang, Yanxia, Fu, Yuming, Wen, Wenfeng, Dou, Liming, Wu, Xue-Bing, Li, Xiangru, Huo, Zhiying
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Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Wang, Heng
Ai, Yanli
Zhang, Yanxia
Fu, Yuming
Wen, Wenfeng
Dou, Liming
Wu, Xue-Bing
Li, Xiangru
Huo, Zhiying
author_facet Wang, Heng
Ai, Yanli
Zhang, Yanxia
Fu, Yuming
Wen, Wenfeng
Dou, Liming
Wu, Xue-Bing
Li, Xiangru
Huo, Zhiying
contents We present a sample of 12 quasar candidates with highly variable soft X-ray emission from the 4th XMM-newton Serendipitous Source Catalog (4XMM-DR13) using random forest. We obtained optical to mid-IR photometric data for the 4XMM-DR13 sources by correlating the sample with the SDSS DR18 photometric database and the AllWISE database. By cross-matching this sample with known spectral catalogs from the SDSS and LAMOST surveys, we obtained a training data set containing stars, galaxies, and quasars. The random forest algorithm was trained to classify the XMM-WISE-SDSS sample. We further filtered the classified quasar candidates with $\it{Gaia}$ proper motion to remove stellar contaminants. Finally, 53,992 quasar candidates have been classified, with 10,210 known quasars matched in SIMBAD. The quasar candidates have systematically lower X-ray fluxes than quasars in the training set, which indicates the classifier is helpful to single out fainter quasars. We constructed a sample of 12 sources from these quasars candidates which changed their soft X-ray fluxes by a factor of 10 over $\sim$ 20 years in the 4XMM-newton survey. Our selected highly variable quasar candidates extend the quasar sample, characterized by extreme soft X-ray variability, to the optically faint end with magnitudes around $r \sim 22$. None of the 12 sources were detected in ROSAT observations. Given the flux limit of ROSAT, the result suggests that quasars exhibiting variations of more than two orders of magnitudes are extremely rare.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_15254
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Highly Variable Quasar Candidates Selected from 4XMM-DR13 with Machine Learning
Wang, Heng
Ai, Yanli
Zhang, Yanxia
Fu, Yuming
Wen, Wenfeng
Dou, Liming
Wu, Xue-Bing
Li, Xiangru
Huo, Zhiying
Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
We present a sample of 12 quasar candidates with highly variable soft X-ray emission from the 4th XMM-newton Serendipitous Source Catalog (4XMM-DR13) using random forest. We obtained optical to mid-IR photometric data for the 4XMM-DR13 sources by correlating the sample with the SDSS DR18 photometric database and the AllWISE database. By cross-matching this sample with known spectral catalogs from the SDSS and LAMOST surveys, we obtained a training data set containing stars, galaxies, and quasars. The random forest algorithm was trained to classify the XMM-WISE-SDSS sample. We further filtered the classified quasar candidates with $\it{Gaia}$ proper motion to remove stellar contaminants. Finally, 53,992 quasar candidates have been classified, with 10,210 known quasars matched in SIMBAD. The quasar candidates have systematically lower X-ray fluxes than quasars in the training set, which indicates the classifier is helpful to single out fainter quasars. We constructed a sample of 12 sources from these quasars candidates which changed their soft X-ray fluxes by a factor of 10 over $\sim$ 20 years in the 4XMM-newton survey. Our selected highly variable quasar candidates extend the quasar sample, characterized by extreme soft X-ray variability, to the optically faint end with magnitudes around $r \sim 22$. None of the 12 sources were detected in ROSAT observations. Given the flux limit of ROSAT, the result suggests that quasars exhibiting variations of more than two orders of magnitudes are extremely rare.
title Highly Variable Quasar Candidates Selected from 4XMM-DR13 with Machine Learning
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.15254