Multi-band variability in the blazar 3C 273 with XMM-Newton

TL;DR

This study analyzes multi-wavelength variability of blazar 3C 273 over 12 years, revealing long-term flux changes, frequency-dependent optical/UV variability, and insights into particle acceleration and cooling mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive multi-band variability analysis of 3C 273 over 12 years, highlighting differences in variability patterns across wavelengths and time scales.

Findings

Optical/UV variability amplitude exceeds X-ray variability.

Variability amplitude increases with frequency in optical/UV bands.

Particle acceleration dominates cooling mechanisms in X-ray regime.

Abstract

We have undertaken a nearly simultaneous optical/UV and X-ray variability study of the flat spectrum radio quasar, 3C 273 using data available from the XMM$-$Newton satellite mission from June 2000 to July 2012. Here we focus on the multi-wavelength flux variability on both intra-day and long time scales of this very well known radio-loud source. We found high flux variability over long time scales in all bands for which observations were made. The optical/UV variability amplitude was more than twice than that in the X-ray bands. There is some frequency dependence of the variability in optical/UV bands in the sense that the variability amplitude increases with increasing frequency; however, the X-ray emissions disagree with this trend as the variability amplitude decreases from soft to hard X-ray bands. On intra-day time scales 3C 273 showed small amplitude variability in X-ray bands. A hardness ratio analysis in the X-ray regime indicates that the particle acceleration mechanism dominates the cooling mechanism during most of the ~12 year span of these observations.