Bimodal radio variability in OVRO blazars Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Liodakis I.
  2. Pavlidou V.
  3. Hovatta T.
  4. Max-Moerbeck W.
  5. Pearson T.J.,Richards J.L.
  6. Readhead A.C.S.
  7. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

Blazars are known to show periods of quiescence followed by outbursts visible throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. We present a novel maximum likelihood approach to capturing this bimodal behavior by examining blazar radio variability in the flux-density domain. We separate quiescent and flaring components of a source's light curve by modeling its flux-density distribution as a series of "off" and "on" states. Our modeling allows us to extract information regarding the flaring ratio, duty cycle, and the modulation index in the "off"-state, in the "on"-state, as well as throughout the monitoring period of each blazar. We apply our method to a flux-density-limited subsample from the Owens Valley Radio observatory's 15 GHz blazar monitoring program, and explore differences in the variability characteristics between BL Lacs and FSRQs as well as between {gamma}-ray detected and non-detected sources. We find that: (1) BL Lacs are more variable and have relatively larger outbursts than the FSRQs; (2) unclassified blazar candidates in our sample show similar variability characteristics as the FSRQs; and (3) {gamma}-ray detected differ from the {gamma}-ray non-detected sources in all their variability properties, suggesting a link between the production of {gamma}-rays and the mechanism responsible for the radio variability. Finally, we fit distributions for blazar flaring ratios, duty cycles, and on- and off- modulation indices that can be used in population studies of variability-dependent blazar properties.

Keywords
  1. bl-lacertae-objects
  2. quasars
  3. gamma-ray-astronomy
  4. radio-sources
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2017MNRAS.467.4565L
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/MNRAS/467/4565
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/467/4565

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/467/4565
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/467/4565
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/MNRAS/467/4565
IVOA Table Access TAP
http://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/467/4565/table8?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/467/4565/table8?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/MNRAS/467/4565/table8?

History

2017-03-29T08:39:25Z
Resource record created
2017-03-29T08:39:25Z
Created
2024-08-17T20:18:20Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr