SaMOSA: optical spectroscopy of 7 Fermi blazars

We find that the emission lines are much less variable than the continuum; four of seven blazars had no detectable emission line variability over the 5 yr observation period.

This is consistent with photoionization primarily by an accretion disk, allowing us to use the lines as a probe of disk activity. Comparing optical emission line flux with Fermi {gamma}-ray flux and optical polarized flux, we investigate whether relativistic jet variability is related to the accretion flow. In general, we see no such dependence, suggesting that the jet variability is likely caused by internal processes like turbulence or shock acceleration rather than a variable accretion rate.