J/AJ/151/54 VRIJHK photometry of 3C 279 (Sandrinelli+, 2016)
Quasi-periodicities at year-like timescales in blazars.
Sandrinelli A., Covino S., Dotti M., Treves A.
<Astron. J., 151, 54 (2016)>
=2016AJ....151...54S 2016AJ....151...54S (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: QSOs ; Photometry, infrared ; Photometry, VRI
Keywords: BL Lacertae objects: general -
BL Lacertae objects: individual: (PKS 0537-441,OJ 287,3C 379,
PKS 1510-089,PKS 2005-489), (PKS 2155-304) -
galaxies: active - galaxies: statistics - galaxies: photometry
Abstract:
We searched for quasi-periodicities on year-like timescales in the
light curves of six blazars in the optical--near-infrared bands and we
made a comparison with the high energy emission. We obtained
optical/NIR light curves from Rapid Eye Mounting photometry plus
archival Small & Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System data and
we accessed the Fermi light curves for the γ-ray data. The
periodograms often show strong peaks in the optical and γ-ray
bands, which in some cases may be inter-related. The significance of
the revealed peaks is then discussed, taking into account that the
noise is frequency dependent. Quasi-periodicities on a year-like
timescale appear to occur often in blazars. No straightforward model
describing these possible periodicities is yet available, but some
plausible interpretations for the physical mechanisms causing periodic
variabilities of these sources are examined.
Description:
The starting point of the present investigation is the VRIJHK
photometric observations obtained with the robotic Rapid Eye Mounting
telescope (REM) at La Silla, which are described in detail in
Sandrinelli et al. 2014 (cat. J/A+A/562/A79). We add to the data
available in the above mentioned paper the REM photometry of 3C 279
(see Table2), which is unpublished thus far.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 48 6 Blazar sample
table2.dat 20 1083 Rapid Eye Mounting telescope (REM) photometry
of 3C 279
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See also:
VII/274 : The Roma BZCAT - 5th edition (Massaro+, 2015)
J/A+A/562/A79 : Variability of seven blazars in six bands (Sandrinelli+, 2014)
J/ApJ/722/520 : Gamma-ray light curves of Fermi blazars (Abdo+, 2010)
J/AJ/133/2866 : 2001-02 optical variability of blazar 3C279 (Kartaltepe+, 2007)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 11 A11 --- Name Name of the blazar
13- 14 I2 h RAh Hour of Right Ascension (J2000) (1)
16- 17 I2 min RAm Minute of Right Ascension (J2000) (1)
19- 20 I2 s RAs Second of Right Ascension (J2000) (1)
22 A1 --- DE- Sign of the Declination (J2000) (1)
23- 24 I2 deg DEd Degree of Declination (J2000) (1)
26- 27 I2 arcmin DEm Arcminute of Declination (J2000) (1)
29- 30 I2 arcsec DEs Arcsecond of Declination (J2000) (1)
32- 37 A6 --- Class Class from Massaro et al. 2015 (cat. VII/274)
(BL Lac or FSRQ=Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar)
39- 41 A3 --- SED SED classification (2)
43- 48 F6.4 --- z [0.07/0.9] Redshift (1)
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Note (1): From the Simbad archive (http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/).
Note (2): Classes are defined as follows:
LSP = Low synchrotron peaked blazar (Abdo et al. 2010, cat. J/ApJ/722/520);
ISP = Intermediate synchrotron peaked blazar (Abdo et al. 2010,
cat. J/ApJ/722/520);
HSP = High synchrotron peaked blazar (Abdo et al. 2010,
cat. J/ApJ/722/520).
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1 A1 --- Flt [VRIJHK] Filter used in the observation (V, R,
I, J, H, or K)
3- 7 I5 d MJD [53462/55742] Modified Julian Date of the
observation
9- 14 F6.3 mag [9.5/16.9] Average magnitude in Filter
16- 20 F5.3 mag e_ [0/1] Error in
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS]; Sylvain Guehenneux [CDS] 13-Jul-2016