A 3.8yr optical quasi-periodic oscillations in blue quasar SDSS J132144+033055 through combined light curves from CSS and ZTF

TL;DR

This study reports a 3.8-year optical quasi-periodic oscillation in the blue quasar SDSS J132144+033055, confirmed through multiple methods, suggesting a central binary black hole system and demonstrating the effectiveness of combining long-term light curves for QPO detection.

Contribution

The paper presents the first detection of a 3.8-year optical QPO in SDSS J132144+033055 using combined CSS and ZTF data, and evaluates possible physical origins, ruling out disk and jet precession.

Findings

Confirmed 3.8-year QPO with >5σ confidence

Suggests a binary black hole system with separation <0.018pc

Rules out disk and jet precession as origins

Abstract

In the manuscript, a 3.8yr optical quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) is reported in blue quasar SDSS J132144+033055 (=\obj) at $z=0.269$, based on 16.3yr-long light curve from both CSS and ZTF directly described by a sinusoidal function. The 3.8yr QPOs can be confirmed through the Generalized Lomb-Scargle periodogram with confidence level higher than 5$\sigma$, through properties of the phase-folded light curve and the WWZ technique. Moreover, the collected Pan-STARRS light curves well follow the sinusoidal function described best fitting results to the CSS and ZTF light curves. The optical QPOs strongly indicate a central binary black hole (BBH) system in \obj, with expected space separation smaller than 0.018pc, through the estimated upper limit of total BH mass $3.3\times10^9{\rm M_\odot}$ through the correlation between BH mass and continuum luminosity. Meanwhile, we check disk precession applied to explain the optical QPOs. However, under the disk precession assumption, the determined optical emission regions from central BH have sizes about $37{\rm R_G}$ similar as the sizes $35{\rm R_G}$ of the expected NUV emission regions through the correlation between disk size and BH mass, indicating the disk precession is not preferred. And due to undetected radio emissions, jet precession can be ruled out. Furthermore, only 0.1\% probability can determined as the QPOs mis-detected through CAR process randomly created light curves related to intrinsic AGN activities, re-confirming the optical QPOs with significance level higher than 3$\sigma$. Therefore, combining long-term light curves from CSS and ZTF can lead to more QPOs candidates in the near future.