I'm studying the time-variability of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). AGN are known to exhibit rapid flux variability in every wavelength range that they have been studied at on timescales ranging from minutes to years. In the visible part of the spectrum, radiation from AGN emanates from the accretion disk surrounding the super-massive black hole (SBH) at the center of the AGN. Understanding the nature of the physical process driving the variability may help puzzle out the structure of the accretion disk region.

overview
I am studying AGN in Kepler to probe variability on very short to long time scales. Kepler measures high-precision photometry for targets every 30 min with a design lifespan of 3.5 years.

Information about the short-timescale behavior of AGN learned using Kepler will be applied to studying AGN in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).