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Related papers: Blazar Optical Variability in the Palomar-QUEST Su…

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Blazars, the peculiar class of active galactic nuclei (AGN), are known to show flux variations across the accessible electromagnetic spectrum. Though they have been studied extensively for their flux variability characteristics across…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-08-13 M. Reshma , Aditi Agarwal , C. S. Stalin , Prajwel Joseph , Akanksha Dagore , Amit Kumar Mandal , Ashish Devaraj , S. B. Gudennavar

We present a study of high-cadence, high-precision, optical light curves from the TESS satellite of 67 blazars in the southern sky. We provide descriptive flux statistics, power spectral density model parameters, and characteristic…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-06-18 Ryne Dingler , Krista Lynne Smith

We present an optical variability study of 44 newly identified blazar candidates behind the Magellanic Clouds, including 27 flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and 17 BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs). All objects in the sample possess high…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-01-29 Natalia Żywucka , Mariusz Tarnopolski , Markus Böttcher , Łukasz Stawarz , Volodymyr Marchenko

Among active galactic nuclei, blazars show extreme variability properties. We here investigate the case of the BL Lac object S4 0954+65 with data acquired in 2019-2020 by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and by the Whole…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-05-12 C. M. Raiteri , M. Villata , V. M. Larionov , S. G. Jorstad , A. P. Marscher , Z. R. Weaver

Blazars display strong variability on multiple timescales and in multiple radiation bands. Their variability is often characterized by power spectral densities (PSDs) and time lags plotted as functions of the Fourier frequency. We develop a…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-19 Justin D. Finke , Peter A. Becker

Flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) whose brightness is dominated by a relativistically beamed core, are frequently found in 'blazar state' commonly inferred from a high optical polarization ( > 3%), and/or a large continuum variability.…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-10-05 Krishan Chand , Gopal-Krishna

Blazars are known to exhibit variability across a broad range of timescales. This behavior can include periodicity in their $\gamma$-ray emission, whose clear detection remains an ongoing challenge, partly due to the inherent stochasticity…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-07-08 P. Peñil , M. Ajello , S. Buson , A. Domínguez , J. R. Westernacher-Schneider , A. Rico , S. Adhikari , J. Zrake

Many quasi-simultaneous optical observations of 17 blazars are obtained from previous papers published over the last 19 years in order to investigate the spectral slope variability and understand the radiation mechanism of blazars. The…

Astrophysics · Physics 2019-09-04 Shao Ming Hu , G. Zhao , H. Y. Guo , X. Zhang , Y. G. Zheng

Aims: We aim at investigating the time-behaviour of a sample of gamma-ray blazars. We present the results from a 13 month-long optical photometry monitoring campaign of the blazars PKS 0048-097, PKS 0754+100, HB89 0827+243, PKS 0851+202,…

The extreme variability of blazars, in both timescale and amplitude, is generally explained as the effect of a relativistic jet closely aligned to the observer's line-of-sight. Due to causality arguments, variability characteristics…

We have obtained single-epoch optical photometry for 201 quasars, taken from the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey, which span a wide range in radio loudness. Comparison with the magnitudes of these objects on the POSS-I plates provides by far the…

We investigate the use of optical photometric variability to select and identify blazars in large-scale time-domain surveys, in part to aid in the identification of blazar counterparts to the ~30% of gamma-ray sources in the Fermi 2FGL…

We have measured multi-band optical flux and colour variations for a sample of 12 low energy peaked blazars on short, day-to-month, timescales. Our sample contains six BL Lacertae objects and six flat spectrum radio quasars. These…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-18 Bindu Rani , Alok C. Gupta , A. Strigachev , R. Bachev , Paul J. Wiita , E. Semkov , E. Ovcharov , B. Mihov , S. Boeva , S. Peneva , B. Spassov , S. Tsvetkova , K. Stoyanov , A. Valcheva

Blazars are highly variable, radio-loud active galactic nuclei with jets oriented at a small angle to the line of sight. The observed emission of these sources covers the whole electromagnetic spectrum from radio frequencies up to the high…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2016-04-20 Alicja Wierzcholska

We observed the prototype blazar, BL Lacertae, extensively in optical and radio bands during an active phase in the period 2010--2013 when the source showed several prominent outbursts. We searched for possible correlations and time lags…

We present multiwavelength data for twelve blazars observed from 2008-2010 as part of an ongoing optical-infrared photometric monitoring project. Sources were selected to be bright, southern (dec < 20 deg) blazars observed by the Fermi…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-03 E. W. Bonning , C. M. Urry , C. Bailyn , M. Buxton , R. Chatterjee , P. Coppi , G. Fossati , J. Isler , L. Maraschi

The Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope provides an unprecedented opportunity to study gamma-ray blazars. To capitalize on this opportunity, beginning in late 2007, about a year before the start of LAT…

To search for optical variability on a wide range of timescales, we have carried out photometric monitoring of two flat spectrum radio quasars, 3C 454.3 and 3C 279, plus one BL Lac, S5 0716+714, all of which have been exhibiting remarkably…

We present the results of our power spectral analysis for the BL Lac object PKS 0735+178 utilizing the Fermi-LAT survey at high-energy $\gamma$-rays, several ground-based optical telescopes, and single-dish radio telescopes operating at GHz…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2017-03-22 Arti Goyal , Lukasz Stawarz , Michal Ostrowski , Valeri Larionov , Gopal-Krishna , Paul J. Wiita , Santosh Joshi , Marian Soida , Ivan Agudo

The optical variability of 29 flat spectrum radio quasars in SDSS Stripe 82 region are investigated by using DR7 released multi-epoch data. All FSRQs show variations with overall amplitude ranging from 0.24 mag to 3.46 mag in different…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-27 Minfeng Gu , Y. L. Ai