San Pedro Martir observations of microvariability in obscured quasars
  Fast brightness variations are a unique tool to probe the innermost regions
of active galactic nuclei (AGN). These variations are called microvariability
or intra-night variability, and this phenomenon has been monitored in samples
of blazars and unobscured AGNs. Detecting optical microvariations in targets
hidden by the obscuring torus is a challenging task because the region
responsible for the variations is hidden from our sight. However, there have
been reports of fast variations in obscured Seyfert galaxies in X-rays, which
rises the question whether microvariations can also be detected in obscured
AGNs in the optical regime. Because the expected variations are very small and
can easily be lost within the noise, the analysis requires a statistical
approach. We report the use of a one-way analysis of variance, ANOVA, with
which we searched for microvariability. ANOVA was successfully employed in
previous studies of unobscured AGNs. As a result, we found microvariable events
during three observing blocks: in two we observed the same object (Mrk 477),
and in another, J0759+5050. The results on Mrk 477 confirm previous findings.
However, since Mrk 477 is quite a peculiar target with hidden broad-line
regions, we cannot rule out the possibility that we have serendipitously chosen
a target prone to variations.
