English

Constraints on black hole massess with timescales of variations in blazars

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2015-05-27 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

In this paper, we investigated the issue of black hole masses and minimum timescales of jet emission for blazars. We proposed a sophisticated model that sets an upper limit to the central black hole masses MM_{\bullet} with the minimum timescales Δtminob\Delta t^{\rm{ob}}_{\rm{min}} of variations observed in blazars. The value of Δtminob\Delta t^{\rm{ob}}_{\rm{min}} presents an upper limit to the size of blob in jet. The blob is assumed to be generated in the jet-production region in the vicinity of black hole, and then the expanding blob travels outward along the jet. We applied the model to 32 blazars, 29 of which were detected in gamma rays by satellites, and these Δtminob\Delta t^{\rm{ob}}_{\rm{min}} are on the order of hours with large variability amplitudes. In general, these MM_{\bullet} estimated with this method are not inconsistent with those masses reported in the literatures. This model is natural to connect MM_{\bullet} with Δtminob\Delta t^{\rm{ob}}_{\rm{min}} for blazars, and seems to be applicable to constrain MM_{\bullet} in the central engines of blazars.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1503.08042,
  title  = {Constraints on black hole massess with timescales of variations in blazars},
  author = {H. T. Liu and J. M. Bai},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.08042},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

17 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, submitted to AJ