Disk Structure May Determine AGN Variability and Explain the Accretion Disk Size Problem: No Broad Line Region Required

arXiv:2610.12462

Amy Secunda, Yan-Fei Jiang, Jenny E. Greene

Variability is a crucial probe of active galactic nuclei (AGN) disks, but the impact of the structure and internal physics of the disk on this variability is poorly understood. We perform 3D multi-frequency radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the $1300-5940~\rmÅ$ emitting region of an AGN disk. This turbulent disk simulation happens to stochastically have different disk thickness above and below the midplane. Light curves emitted from the thin top of the disk are broadly consistent with traditional variability models, where the X-ray irradiation emitted from the corona is the main driver of variability in UV-optical light curves. Conversely, the UV-optical light curves emitted from the thicker bottom of the disk are not strongly correlated with the X-ray light curve and have disk continuum reverberation mapping lags that are $3-5\times$ longer than the light travel time. While these features are inconsistent with traditional variability models, they are in good agreement with numerous recent observations. Our simulations allow us to interpret these recent observations with a new model for AGN disks, where the thicker disk leads to greater X-ray absorption, less X-ray reprocessing at larger disk radii, and a stronger signal from intrinsic variability driven by fluctuations in the AGN disk. In our simulations, we can measure the inflow timescale of these fluctuations as a long lag between light curves emitted from different disk radii. Understanding how disk structure impacts AGN variability and reverberation mapping can allow us to predict the thickness of AGN disks using UV-optical AGN light curves.