About 300 days optical quasi-periodic oscillations in the long-term light curves of the blazar PKS 2155-304

TL;DR

This study identifies a consistent approximately 300-day optical quasi-periodic oscillation in the long-term light curves of blazar PKS 2155-304 using multiple methods, supporting models like jet precession or binary black holes.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive detection of a 300-day optical QPO in PKS 2155-304 using four different analysis techniques and assesses potential physical models.

Findings

Optical QPOs around 300 days detected with high significance.

The probability of false detection is below 0.8%.

Results are consistent with previous literature.

Abstract

Based on the long-term light curves collected from the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) (from 2005 to 2013) and the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) (from 2014 to 2018), optical quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) about 300 days can be well determined in the well-known blazar PKS~2155-304 through four different methods: the generalized Lomb-Scargle periodogram (GLSP) method, the weighted wavelet Z-transform (WWZ) technique, the epoch-folded method and redfit method. The GLSP determined significance level for the periodicity is higher than 99.9999\% based on a false alarm probability. The redfit provided confidence level for the periodicity is higher than 99\% in ASAS-SN light curve, after considering the effects of red noise. Based on continuous autoregressive (CAR) process created artificial light curves, the probability of detecting fake QPOs is lower than 0.8\%. The determined optical periodicity of 300 days from CSS and ASAS-SN light curves is well consistent with the reported optical periodicity in the literature. Moreover, three possible models are discussed to explain the optical QPOs in PKS 2155-304: the relativistic Frame-dragging effect, the binary black hole (BBH) model and the jet precession model.