There are a number of reasons we care about AGN. For one, they are the engines of active galaxies, which are especially prevalent during the early universe, and we think that the more we know about them, the more we will learn about the evolution of galaxies and the universe. They are also the most luminous objects in the sky, and in a way somewhat analogous to supernovae, if we can work out the dependencies of their observed spectral energy distributions, we can use them as "posts" to obtain more accurate maps of the universe. I swear I had a third reason, but it's late, and I'll probably think of it as I go to sleep.

The systems that contain AGN are apparently complex, involving at least the broad line regions, accretion disks, and possibly matter jets. We are, in almost all cases, unable to resolve the configurations of these systems directly, so we need to infer their configurations. Reverberation mapping refers to the technique of inferring the configuring of the systems by analysing the time lags observed for frequency bands, and comparing these with the predictions of photo-matter interactions for systems with assumed configurations.

Reverberation mapping in the optical bands has thus-far involved primarily time domain analysis. The shortcoming of this technique is that is requires evenly distributed (in time) data. You (Dr. Cackett) along with Zoghbi and Reynolds have developed a frequency domain analysis technique, the "maximum likelihood" technique, that allows for analysis of unevenly distributed (in time) data. This technique has been demonstrated useful in the X-ray bands. We want to take the next step in the analysis of these astrophysical objects of interest by extending the utility of the maximum likelihood technique to the optical bands. That's where I come in.
