J/ApJ/849/161 BVRI light curves of the BL Lac object Mrk 501 (Feng+, 2017)
Search for intra-day optical variability in Mrk 501.
Feng H.-C., Liu H.T., Fan X.L., Zhao Y., Bai J.M., Wang F., Xiong D.R.,
Li S.K.
<Astrophys. J., 849, 161 (2017)>
=2017ApJ...849..161F 2017ApJ...849..161F
ADC_Keywords: BL Lac objects; Photometry, UBVRI
Keywords: BL Lacertae objects: individual (Mrk 501); galaxies: active;
galaxies: nuclei
Abstract:
We present our observations of the optical intra-day variability (IDV)
in γ-ray BL Lac object Mrk 501. The observations were run with
the 1.02m and 2.4m optical telescopes at Yunnan Observatories from
2005 April to 2012 May. The light curve at the R band on 2010 May 15
passes both variability tests (the F-test and the ANOVA test). A flare
within the light curve on 2010 May 15 has a magnitude change of
Δm=0.03±0.005stat±0.007sysmag, a darkening timescale of
τd=26.7min., and an amplitude of IDV Amp=2.9%±0.7% . A decline
described by 11 consecutive flux measurements within the flare can be
fitted linearly with a Pearson's correlation coefficient r=0.945 at
the confidence level of >99.99% . Under the assumptions that the IDV
is tightly connected to the mass of the black hole, and that the flare
duration, being two times τd, is representative of the minimum
characteristic timescale, we can derive upper bounds to the mass of
the black hole. In the case of the Kerr black hole, the timescale of
Δtminob=0.89hr gives M•≲109.20M☉, which is
consistent with measurements reported in the literature. This
agreement indicates that the hypothesis about M• and
Δtminob is consistent with the measurements/data.
Description:
The optical monitoring program of Mrk 501 was carried out with two
telescopes: the 1.02 and 2.4m optical telescopes at Yunnan
Observatories, China. For both of the two telescopes, we selected
standard Johnson broadband filters to carry out the observations in
the B, V, R, and I bands.
During our monitoring program from 2005 to 2012, 1532 CCD frames were
obtained in 50 nights. For most nights, the exposure times are 40-400s
for 1.02m telescope and 10-50s for 2.4m telescope.
Objects:
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RA (ICRS) DE Designation(s)
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16 53 52.22 +39 45 36.6 Mrk 501 = LEDA 59214
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File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table2.dat 95 689 The observational data for Mrk 501
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See also:
J/A+AS/98/393 : 1Jy BL Lac Objects: Observational Data (Stickel+ 1993)
J/A+AS/116/403 : VRI photometry of stars in 12 BL Lac objects (Fiorucci+, 1996)
J/A+AS/132/83 : BVRI photometry of 7 BL Lac objects (Bai+ 1998)
J/ApJ/522/846 : Optical monitoring of GeV loud blazars (Xie+, 1999)
J/ApJ/525/127 : RGB sample of BL Lacertae objects (Laurent-Muehleisen+, 1999)
J/A+A/445/441 : SED of BL Lacertae objects (Nieppola+, 2006)
J/AJ/135/1384 : R-band variability in 5 blazars (Gupta+, 2008)
J/ApJ/696/580 : Properties of weak emission-line QSOs (WLQ) (Shemmer+, 2009)
J/ApJ/716/30 : SED of Fermi bright blazars (Abdo+, 2010)
J/ApJ/722/520 : Gamma-ray light curves of Fermi blazars (Abdo+, 2010)
J/ApJS/192/12 : Photometry of the blazar PKS 0537-441 (Impiombato+, 2011)
J/ApJ/761/125 : X and γ spectral indexes of Fermi blazars (Fan+, 2012)
J/A+A/548/A79 : INTEGRAL-OMC optically var. sources (Alfonso-Garzon+, 2012)
J/A+A/563/A57 : Long-term variability of AGN at hard X-rays (Soldi+, 2014)
J/ApJ/782/45 : SEAMBHs. I. Mrk 142, Mrk 335, and IRAS F12397+3333 (Du+, 2014)
J/MNRAS/438/3058 : 15GHz variability of γ-ray blazars (Richards+, 2014)
J/MNRAS/439/690 : Optical/γ-ray variability in blazars (Hovatta+, 2014)
J/ApJS/213/26 : Optical light curves of PHL1811 and 3C273 (Fan+, 2014)
J/A+A/573/A50 : Multiwavelength obs. of Mrk 501 in 2008 (Aleksic+, 2015)
J/ApJS/218/18 : 2004-2012 BVRI observations of blazar S5 0716+714 (Dai+, 2015)
J/ApJS/222/24 : VRI LCs of BL Lac object Mrk 501 from 2010-2015 (Xiong+, 2016)
J/AZh/93/605 : AGN long-term variability (Volvach+, 2016)
J/MNRAS/467/4565 : Bimodal radio variability in OVRO blazars (Liodakis+, 2017)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 11 F11.6 d MJD-B [3465.8/6051]? B band Modified Julian Date
of observation; MJD-50000
13- 18 F6.3 mag Bmag [13.8/14.9]? Apparent B band magnitude
20- 23 F4.2 arcsec FWHM-B [1.2/4.5]? Full-Width at Half Maximum of B band
aperture
25- 35 F11.6 d MJD-I [3465.8/6059]? I band Modified Julian Date of
observation; MJD-50000
37- 42 F6.3 mag Imag [12/12.7]? Apparent I band magnitude
44- 47 F4.2 arcsec FWHM-I [1/5.2]? Full-Width at Half Maximum of I band
aperture
49- 59 F11.6 d MJD-R [3465.8/6065] R band Modified Julian Date of
observation; MJD-50000
61- 66 F6.3 mag Rmag [12.7/18.9] Apparent R band magnitude
68- 71 F4.2 arcsec FWHM-R [1.1/5.4] Full-Width at Half Maximum of R band
aperture
73- 83 F11.6 d MJD-V [3465.8/6061]? V band Modified Julian Date of
observation; MJD-50000
85- 90 F6.3 mag Vmag [13/14]? Apparent V band magnitude
92- 95 F4.2 arcsec FWHM-V [1.1/3.6]? Full-Width at Half Maximum of V band
aperture
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 19-Jun-2018