  We carried out a one-night optical V and near-infrared JHK monitoring
observation of the least luminous Seyfert 1 galaxy, NGC4395, on 2004 May 1, and
detected for the first time the intraday flux variations in the J and H bands,
while such variation was not clearly seen for the K band. The detected J and H
variations are synchronized with the flux variation in the V band, which
indicates that the intraday-variable component of near-infrared continuum
emission of the NGC4395 nucleus is an extension of power-law continuum emission
to the near-infrared and originates in an outer region of the central accretion
disk. On the other hand, from our regular program of long-term optical BVI and
near-infrared JHK monitoring observation of NGC4395 from 2004 February 12 until
2005 January 22, we found large flux variations in all the bands on time scales
of days to months. The optical BVI variations are almost synchronized with each
other, but not completely with the near-infrared JHK variations. The color
temperature of the near-infrared variable component is estimated to be
T=1320-1710 K, in agreement with thermal emission from hot dust tori in active
galactic nuclei (AGNs). We therefore conclude that the near-infrared variation
consists of two components having different time scales, so that a small K-flux
variation on a time scale of a few hours would possibly be veiled by large
variation of thermal dust emission on a time scale of days.

Astrophysics