Similar shot profile morphology of fast variability in cataclysmic variable, X-ray binary and blazar; the MV Lyr case

TL;DR

This study analyzes high-quality Kepler data of the cataclysmic variable MV Lyr, revealing complex shot profiles and similarities with blazar and X-ray binary variability, suggesting a common origin in accretion processes and jet-disc connections.

Contribution

It introduces a shot profile analysis revealing multicomponent features and high-frequency components not detected by standard methods, linking variability mechanisms across different astrophysical objects.

Findings

Identified new high-frequency components in power spectra.

Discovered similar shot profile structures in CVs, blazars, and X-ray binaries.

Suggested a common origin for variability in accretion and jet processes.

Abstract

The cataclysmic variable MV Lyr was present in the Kepler field yielding a light curve with the duration of almost 1500 days with 60 second cadence. Such high quality data of this nova-like system with obvious fast optical variability show multicomponent power density spectra. Our goal is to study the light curve from different point of view, and perform a shot profile analysis. We search for characteristics not discovered with standard power density spectrum based methods. The shot profile method identifies individual shots in the light curve, and averages them in order to get all substructures with typical time scales. We also tested the robustness of our analysis using simple shot noise model. We obtained mean profiles with multicomponent features. The shot profile method distinguishes substructures with similar time scales which appear as a single degenerate feature in power density spectra. Furthermore, this method yields the identification of another high frequency component in the power density spectra of Kepler and XMM-Newton data not detected so far. Moreover, we found side-lobes accompanied with the central spike, making the profile very similar to another Kepler data of blazar W2R 1926+42, and Ginga data of Cyg X-1. All three objects show similar time scale ratios of the rising vs. declining part of the central spikes, while the two binaries have also similar rising profiles of the shots described by a power-law function. The similarity of both binary shot profiles suggests that the shots originate from the same origin, e.g. aperiodic mass accretion in the accretion disc. Moreover, the similarity with the blazar may imply that the ejection fluctuations in the blazar jet are connected to accretion fluctuations driving the variability in binaries. This points out to connection between jet and the accretion disc.