A 6.4yr optical quasi-periodic oscillations in SDSS J075217.84+193542.2: a new candidate for central binary black hole system

TL;DR

This paper reports a 6.4-year optical quasi-periodic oscillation in quasar SDSS J075217.84+193542.2, strongly suggesting a central binary black hole system with specific mass estimates and ruling out alternative explanations like disk or jet precession.

Contribution

The study provides the first detection of a long-term optical QPO in this quasar and interprets it as evidence for a central binary black hole system, with detailed analysis ruling out other models.

Findings

Detected 6.4-year optical QPO with high confidence.

Estimated black hole masses: ~8.8×10^7 and 1.04×10^9 solar masses.

Concluded binary black hole system is the most plausible explanation.

Abstract

In this manuscript, a 6.4yr optical quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) is detected in the quasar SDSS J075217.84+193542.2 (=\obj) at a redshift 0.117, of which 13.6yr-long light curve from CSS and ASAS-SN directly described by a sinusoidal function with a periodicity 6.4yr. The 6.4yr QPOs can be further confirmed through the Generalized Lomb-Scargle periodogram with confidence level higher than 99.99\%, and through the auto-correlation analysis results, and through the WWZ technique. The optical QPOs strongly indicate a central binary black hole (BBH) system in \obj. The determined two broad Gaussian components in the broad H$\alpha$ can lead to the BBH system with expected space separation about 0.02pc between the expected two central BHs with determined virial BH masses about $8.8\times10^7{\rm M_\odot}$ and $1.04\times10^9{\rm M_\odot}$. Meanwhile, we check the disk precessions applied to explain the optical QPOs. However, under the disk precession assumption, the determined optical emission regions from central BH have sizes about $40{\rm R_G}$ two times smaller than sizes of the expected NUV emission regions through the correlation between disk size and BH mass, indicating the disk precessions are not preferred. And due to the lower radio loudness around 0.28, jet precessions can be also totally ruled out. Furthermore, only 0.08\% probability can determined as the QPOs mis-detected through light curves randomly created by the CAR process, re-confirming the reported optical QPOs.