English

Understanding the General Feature of Microvariability in ${\it Kepler}$ Blazar W2R 1926$+$42

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2017-02-01 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

We analyze the Kepler{\it Kepler} monitoring light curve of a blazar W2R 1926++42 to examine features of microvariability by means of the "shot analysis" technique. We select 195 intra-day, flare-like variations (shots) for the continuous light curve of Quarter 14 with a duration of 100 d. In the application of the shot analysis, an averaged profile of variations is assumed to converge with a universal profile which reflects a physical mechanism generating the microvariability in a blazar jet, although light-variation profiles of selected shots show a variety. A mean profile, which is obtained by aligning the peaks of the 195 shots, is composed of a spiky-shape shot component at ±\pm0.1 d (with respect to the time of the peak), and two slow varying components ranging from -0.50 d to -0.15 d and from 0.10 d to 0.45 d of the peak time. The former spiky feature is well represented by an exponential rise of 0.043±\pm0.001 d and an exponential decay of 0.061±\pm0.002 d. These timescales are consistent with that corresponding to a break frequency of a power spectrum density calculated from the obtained light curve. After verification with the Monte-Carlo method, the exponential shape, but not the observed asymmetry, of the shot component can be explained by noise variation. The asymmetry is difficult to explain through a geometrical effect (i.e. changes of the geometry of the emitting region), but is more likely to be caused by the production and dissipation of high-energy accelerated particles in the jet. Additionally, durations of the detected shots show a systematic variation with a dispersion caused by a statistical randomness. A comparison with the variability of Cygnus X-1 is also briefly discussed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1611.06311,
  title  = {Understanding the General Feature of Microvariability in ${\it Kepler}$ Blazar W2R 1926$+$42},
  author = {Mahito Sasada and Shin Mineshige and Shinya Yamada and Hitoshi Negoro},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1611.06311},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

40 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ