Intra-night optical variability characteristics of different classes of narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxies

TL;DR

This study systematically compares intra-night optical variability in different classes of narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxies, revealing higher variability in gamma-ray loud sources likely due to relativistic jets, and suggesting a link between variability and optical polarization.

Contribution

First comprehensive analysis of INOV across radio-loud and radio-quiet NLSy1 galaxies, highlighting differences linked to jet activity and polarization.

Findings

Gamma-ray loud NLSy1 galaxies show highest INOV duty cycle (~55%)

Radio-quiet NLSy1 galaxies show negligible INOV (~0%)

Higher polarization correlates with increased INOV duty cycle and amplitude

Abstract

In a first systematic effort to characterize the intra-night optical variability (INOV) of different classes of narrow line Seyfert 1 (NLSy1) galaxies, we have carried out observations on a sample of radio-loud (RL) and radio-quiet (RQ) NLSy1 galaxies. The RL-NLSy1 galaxies are further divided into {\gamma}-ray loud (GL) and {\gamma}-ray quiet (GQ) NLSy1 galaxies. Our sample consists of four sets, each set consisting of a RQ-NLSy1, a GQ-NLSy1 and a GL-NLSy1 galaxy, closely matched in redshift and optical luminosity. Our observations on both RQ and GQ-NLSy1 galaxies consist of a total of 19 nights, whereas the data for GL-NLSy1 galaxies (18 nights) were taken from literature published earlier by us. This enabled us to do a comparison of the duty cycle (DC) of different classes of NLSy1 galaxies. Using power-enhanced F-test, with a variability threshold of 1%, we find DCs of about 55%, 39% and 0% for GL, GQ and RQ-NLSy1 galaxies respectively. The high DC and large amplitude of INOV (24.0 +/- 13.7%) shown by GL-NLSy1 galaxies relative to the other two classes might be due to their inner aligned relativistic jets having large bulk Lorentz factors. The null DC of RQ-NLSy1 galaxies could mean the presence of low power and/or largely misaligned jets in them. However, dividing RL-NLSy1 galaxies into low and high optical polarization sources, we find that sources with large polarization show somewhat higher DCs (69%) and amplitudes (29%) compared to those with low polarization. This points to a possible link between INOV and optical polarization.