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Title:
Nearly Periodic Variability in Both Optical and X-ray Emission from the Blazar S5 0716+714
Authors:
Wiita, Paul J.; Gupta, A. C.; Rani, B.; Srivastava, A. K.
Affiliation:
AA(Georgia State Univ), AB(ARIES, India), AC(ARIES, India), AD(ARIES, India)
Publication:
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #326.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.382
Publication Date:
01/2009
Origin:
AAS
Bibliographic Code:
2009AAS...21332604W

Abstract

We have analyzed lengthy archival data sets for the well-known blazar S5 0716+714 and have found the first strong evidence for nearly periodic variations on both sub-hour (optical) and multi-month (x-ray) timescales. This source is highly variable at all measured wavelengths and there have been previous weak claims of possible periodic variations on timescales from about 30 minutes (optical) to about a week (optical and radio).

Using wavelets, we have analyzed the best 20 nights from a set of 102 optical light-curves from Montagni et al. (2006) and find strong evidence (p > 0.95) for nearly periodic variability components in 8 of them. With very high confidence (p > 0.99), a periodic component is present during 3 nights. These quasi-periods ranged from 30 to 70 minutes and were strong for several hours. The x-ray data are from the RXTE All Sky Monitor and span 12 years. A structure function analysis yields a very strong signal of a quasi-period of 330 days over most of that interval. If the intranight optical variability arises in the inner region of an accretion disk and thus is related to the innermost stable circular orbit, then the mass of the central black hole exceeds 2.5 x 106 solar masses. However, it seems more likely that the SMBH mass is substantially greater and that these nearly periodic variations on very different timescales reflect Doppler boosted emission from different portions of a non-axisymmetric, turbulent relativistic jet. PJW was supported in part by a subcontract to GSU from NSF grant AST-0507529 to the University of Washington.

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