Tracing the evolving X-ray reverberation lags within an individual AGN light curve

We present the Granger causality (GC) test for the X-ray reverberation analysis of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). If the light curves in the continuum-dominated band help predict (Granger cause) those dominated by reflection, the Granger lags that associate to the intrinsic reverberation lags can be inferred. We focus on six AGNs observed by XMM-Newton, including the sources well-known to exhibit clear X-ray reverberation lags (IRAS 13224-3809 and 1H 0707-495) and those in which reverberation signatures are not well confirmed (MCG-6-30-15, IZW1, Mrk 704, and Mrk 1040). We employ the sliding-window algorithm and estimate the Granger (intrinsic) Fe-L lags along the light curve as the window moves through. This reveals the evolving lags towards the end of some individual observations, suggesting that the corona varies progressively. Occasionally, we observe two clearly separate lags that suggest an extended corona consisting of two zones while producing competing reverberation of two lags. While the GC test is purely hypothetical and might not explain true causality, our conclusion is that the lags are present and could be understood as reverberation lags. Assuming the lags changing solely with the corona, we find that the IRAS 13224-3809 corona varies between ~10 and 25 r_g and sometimes move to ≳50 r_g. The corona of 1H 0707-495 and MCG-6-30-15 may be analogous to that of IRAS 13224-3809, while in IZw1, Mrk 704, and Mrk 1040, a more compact corona is expected.