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J.M. Gelbord (JHU), K.A. Weaver (GSFC & JHU)
We discuss Fe~K\alpha line profile variability in all Seyfert~1 galaxies for which multiple ASCA observations are available in the public archive. We examine the line core energies defined by fitting narrow Gaussians to the time averaged observations. Such analysis is simplistic but avoids many modeling uncertainties. In some galaxies, the Fe line flux tracks the continuum flux with no delay (timescales of days), while in others the line flux remains unchanged over years despite substantial variations in continuum radiation. Overall, the Fe line energies are observed to change (with >99% confidence) in ~35% of our sample. This is a lower limit because our procedure is inherently insensitive to variability due to time averaging, limited sampling, and possible contamination of fluorescence in multiple regions including those at large distances from the central engine.
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