Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Abstract NGC 4395 is a nearby dwarf spiral galaxy hosting an active galactic nucleus (AGN) powered by an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH; M BH ∼ 10 4−5 M ⊙ ). Recent optical continuum reverberation mapping studies have suggested potential lag variations between different epochs, offering important clues to the physical mechanisms governing variability in the vicinity of the central black hole. We present continuous intranight multiband photometric monitoring of NGC 4395 based on five nights of observations, including three nights from the Faulkes Telescope North (two archival) and two new nights from Mephisto. This represents the first systematic investigation of optical continuum lag stability in a robustly confirmed IMBH. By applying difference-imaging techniques to both the new observations and the reprocessed archival data, we significantly detect optical interband lags of ∼5–15 minutes, which increase monotonically with wavelength. No obvious u -band lag excess is observed, implying a negligible fractional contribution from diffuse continuum (DC) emission to the optical continuum, in agreement with our spectral decomposition results. Remarkably, the interband lags remain stable over multiyear baselines. We suggest that this long-term lag stability may be related to the minor DC contribution, a relatively steady disk–corona structure, and the unusually high X-ray-to-optical luminosity ratio characteristic of low-luminosity AGNs, which likely allows X-ray reprocessing to dominate over other potential variability mechanisms. Future facilities like Gemini/SCORPIO, with its simultaneous optical to near-infrared coverage, will be ideally suited to play an important role in advancing this field.
Pan et al. (Wed,) studied this question.