The complex variability of blazars: time-scales and periodicity analysis in S4 0954+65
: Raiteri CM, Villata M, Larionov VM, Jorstad SG, Marscher AP, Weaver ZR, Acosta-Pulido JA, Agudo I, Andreeva T, Arkharov A, Bachev R, Benitez E, Berton M, Bjorklund I, Borman GA, Bozhilov V, Carnerero MI, Carosati D, Casadio C, Chen WP, Damljanovic G, D'Ammando F, Escudero J, Fuentes A, Giroletti M, Grishina TS, Gupta AC, Hagen-Thorn VA, Hart M, Hiriart D, Hou WJ, Ivanov D, Kim JY, Kimeridze GN, Konstantopoulou C, Kopatskaya EN, Kurtanidze OM, Kurtanidze SO, Lahteenmaki A, Larionova EG, Larionova LV, Marchili N, Markovic G, Minev M, Morozova DA, Myserlis I, Nakamura M, Nikiforova AA, Nikolashvili MG, Otero-Santos J, Ovcharov E, Pursimo T, Rahimov I, Righini S, Sakamoto T, Savchenko SS, Semkov EH, Shakhovskoy D, Sigua LA, Stojanovic M, Strigachev A, Thum C, Tornikoski M, Traianou E, Troitskaya YV, Troitskiy IS, Tsai A, Valcheva A, Vasilyev AA, Vince O, Zaharieva E
: 2021
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
: MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
: MON NOT R ASTRON SOC
: 504
: 4
: 5629
: 5646
: 18
: 0035-8711
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab1268
: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/66398332
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 Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) Collaboration. The 2-min cadence optical light curves provided by TESS during three observing sectors of nearly 1 month each allow us to study the fast variability in great detail. We identify several characteristic short-term time-scales, ranging from a few hours to a few days. However, these are not persistent, as they differ in the various TESS sectors. The long-term photometric and polarimetric optical and radio monitoring undertaken by the WEBT brings significant additional information, revealing that (i) in the optical, long-term flux changes are almost achromatic, while the short-term ones are strongly chromatic; (ii) the radio flux variations at 37 GHz follow those in the optical with a delay of about 3 weeks; (iii) the range of variation of the polarization degree and angle is much larger in the optical than in the radio band, but the mean polarization angles are similar; (iv) the optical long-term variability is characterized by a quasi-periodicity of about 1 month. We explain the source behaviour in terms of a rotating inhomogeneous helical jet, whose pitch angle can change in time.
