THE VARIABILITY OF QUASARS .2. FREQUENCY-DEPENDENCE

The variability of 30 PG quasars has been observed in the red band dur ing 3 years. A rest-frame structure function analysis shows an increas e of variability with the time interval up to 0.2 mag rms after 2 year s. A comparison with the IUE data available for PG quasars shows that the variability increases with the rest-frame frequency at each time i nterval. Evidence for this effect is supported by the analysis of the average variability of other published quasar samples. The effect can account completely for the increase of variability with redshift found in other studies.