Characterizing the $\gamma$-Ray Variability of Active Galactic Nuclei with Stochastic Process Method

TL;DR

This study analyzes the long-term gamma-ray variability of 23 active galactic nuclei using stochastic process models, revealing a connection between gamma-ray and optical variability timescales and suggesting a link between jet activity and accretion disk processes.

Contribution

It applies stochastic process models to gamma-ray light curves of AGNs, demonstrating their effectiveness in characterizing variability and linking gamma-ray timescales to accretion disk thermal timescales.

Findings

Both SHO and DRW models fit the AGN gamma-ray variability well.

Gamma-ray characteristic timescales align with optical variability timescales.

Gamma-ray timescales are consistent with thermal timescales in accretion disks.

Abstract

The $\gamma$-ray astronomy in time domain has been by now progressed further as the variabilities of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) on different timescales have been reported a lot. We study the $\gamma$-ray variabilities of 23 jetted AGNs through applying a stochastic process method to the ~12.7 yr long-term light curve (LC) obtained by Fermi-Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT). In this method, the stochastically driven damped simple harmonic oscillator (SHO) and the damped random walk (DRW) models are used to model the long-term LCs. Our results show that the long-term variabilities of 23 AGNs can be characterized well by both SHO and DRW models. However, the SHO model is restricted in the over-damped mode and the parameters are poorly constrained. The SHO power spectral densities (PSDs) are same as the typical DRW PSD. In the plot of the rest-frame timescale that corresponds to the broken frequency in the PSD versus black hole mass, the intrinsic $\gamma$-ray characteristic timescales of 23 AGNs occupy almost the same space with the optical variability timescales obtained from the accretion disk emission. This suggests a connection between the jet and the accretion disk. Same as the optical variability of AGN accretion disk, the $\gamma$-ray timescale is also consistent with the thermal timescale caused by the thermal instability in the standard accretion disk of AGN.