Program: GN-2019B-Q-107

Title:The Real-Time Appearance of the BLR in a New Class of Changing-Look LINERs Discovered by ZTF
PI:Sara Frederick
Co-I(s): Suvi Gezari

Abstract

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey has enabled the real-time discovery of a new class of LINERs turning on into AGN with dramatic spectroscopic changes. Months prior to the transition, all were found to have flared in archival optical photometry after a decade or more of quiescence. We report 6 changing look discoveries in the first year of ZTF. This Gemini-N ToO program seeks to confirm the spectral transformation of 4 additional LINERs caught "changing-look" using photometric variability detected by ZTF difference imaging as a tell-tale signature. This will be a benchmark sample to be used as a laboratory to 1) test the physical mechanisms at work in CLAGN, and 2) compare with that of changing look Seyferts, and 3) map out the structure of the accretion flow and the surrounding environment during these dramatic transitions in real time.