Analyzing polarization swings in 3C 279
Abstract
Quasar 3C 279 is known to exhibit episodes of optical polarization angle rotation. We present new, well-sampled optical polarization data for 3C 279 and introduce a method to distinguish between random and deterministic electric vector position angle (EVPA) variations. We observe EVPA rotations in both directions with different amplitudes and find that the EVPA variation shows characteristics of both random and deterministic cases. Our analysis indicates that the EVPA variation is likely dominated by a random process in the low brightness state of the jet and by a deterministic process in the flaring state.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1311.3126,
title = {Analyzing polarization swings in 3C 279},
author = {S. Kiehlmann and T. Savolainen and S. G. Jorstad and K. V. Sokolovsky and F. K. Schinzel and I. Agudo and A. A. Arkharov and E. Benitez and A. Berdyugin and D. A. Blinov and N. G. Bochkarev and G. A. Borman and A. N. Burenkov and C. Casadio and V. T. Doroshenko and N. V. Efimova and Y. Fukazawa and J. L. Gomez and V. A. Hagen-Thorn and J. Heidt and D. Hiriart and R. Itoh and M. Joshi and G. N. Kimeridze and T. S. Konstantinova and E. N. Kopatskaya and I. V. Korobtsev and Y. Y. Kovalev and T. Krajci and O. Kurtanidze and S. O. Kurtanidze and V. M. Larionov and E. G. Larionova and L. V. Larionova and E. Lindfors and J. M. Lopez and A. P. Marscher and I. M. McHardy and S. N. Molina and D. A. Morozova and S. V. Nazarov and M. G. Nikolashvili and K. Nilsson and N. G. Pulatova and R. Reinthal and A. Sadun and S. G. Sergeev and L. A. Sigua and M. Sorcia and O. I. Spiridonova and L. O. Takalo and B. Taylor and I. S. Troitsky and L. S. Ugolkova and J. A. Zensus and V. E. Zhdanova},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.3126},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
6 pages, 2 figures, 4 tables, proceeding to appear on EPJ Web of Conferences "The Innermost Regions of Relativistic Jets and their Magnetic Fields (Granada, Spain,10-14 June 2013)"