Optical and Gamma-Ray Variability Behaviors of 3C 454.3 from 2006 to 2011

TL;DR

This study monitors the optical and gamma-ray variability of quasar 3C 454.3 from 2006 to 2011, revealing color-brightness trends, flux correlations, and insights into the emission mechanisms and variability origins.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed optical and gamma-ray variability analysis of 3C 454.3 over five years, including color behavior, flux correlation, and variability mechanisms.

Findings

Optical color shows a redder-when-brighter trend with saturation at high brightness.

Fluxes in optical and gamma-ray bands are linearly correlated, supporting external Compton processes.

Electron injection is identified as the primary driver of variability.

Abstract

We present our photometric monitoring of a flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) 3C 454.3 at Yunnan observatories from 2006 to 2011. We find that the optical color of 3C 454.3 shows obvious redder-when-brighter trend, which reaches a saturation stage when the source is brighter than 15.15 mag at V band. We perform a simulation with multiple values of disk luminosity and spectral index to reproduce the magnitude-color diagram. The results show that the contamination caused by the disk radiation alone is difficult to produce the observed color variability. The variability properties during the outburst in December 2009 are also compared with $\gamma$-ray data derived from Fermi $\gamma$-ray space telescope. The flux variation of these two bands follow a linear relation with $F_{\gamma} \propto F_R^{1.14\pm0.07}$, which provides an observational evidence for external Compton process in 3C 454.3. Meanwhile, this flux correlation indicates that electron injection is the main mechanism for variability origin. We also explore the variation of the flux ratio $F_{\gamma}/F_R$ and the detailed structures in the lightcurves, and discuss some possible origins for the detailed variability behaviors.