Quasi-periodic behaviour in the optical and γ-ray light curves of blazars 3C 66A and B2 1633+38

Otero-Santos, J.; Acosta-Pulido, J. A.; Becerra González, J.; Raiteri, C. M.; Larionov, V. M.; Peñil, P.; Smith, P. S.; Ballester Niebla, C.; Borman, G. A.; Carnerero, M. I.; Castro Segura, N.; Grishina, T. S.; Kopatskaya, E. N.; Larionova, E. G.; Morozova, D. A.; Nikiforova, A. A.; Savchenko, S. S.; Troitskaya, Yu V.; Troitsky, I. S.; Vasilyev, A. A.; Villata, M.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Advertised on:
3
2020
Number of authors
21
IAC number of authors
3
Citations
41
Refereed citations
39
Description
We report on quasi-periodic variability found in two blazars included in the Steward Observatory Blazar Monitoring data sample: the BL Lac object 3C 66A and the Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar B2 1633+38. We collect optical photometric and polarimetric data in V and R bands of these sources from different observatories: St. Petersburg University, Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, WEBT-GASP, Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey, Steward Observatory, STELLA Robotic Observatory, and Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope. In addition, an analysis of the γ-ray light curves from Fermi-LAT is included. Three methods are used to search for any periodic behaviour in the data: the Z-transform Discrete Correlation Function, the Lomb-Scargle periodogram and the Weighted Wavelet Z-transform. We find pieces of evidence of possible quasi-periodic variability in the optical photometric data of both sources with periods of ̃3 yr for 3C 66A and ̃1.9 yr for B2 1633+38, with significances between 3σ and 5σ. Only B2 1633+38 shows evidence of this behaviour in the optical polarized data set at a confidence level of 2σ-4σ. This is the first reported evidence of quasi-periodic behaviour in the optical light curve of B2 1633+38. Also, a hint of quasi-periodic behaviour is found in the γ-ray light curve of B2 1633+38 with a confidence level ≥2σ, while no periodicity is observed for 3C 66A in this energy range. We propose different jet emission models that could explain the quasi-periodic variability and the differences found between these two sources.
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