The Method of Searching for Rotations of the Polarization Position Angle of Quasars

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to detect and analyze rotations in the polarization position angle of quasars, demonstrated on long-term observations of specific blazars, revealing predominant rotation directions.

Contribution

A novel statistical method for identifying and evaluating the significance of polarization angle rotations in quasars, applied to real observational data.

Findings

51 rotations identified in the sample

Rotations in CTA 102 and 3C 454.3 are mostly unidirectional

Method effectively distinguishes true rotations from noise

Abstract

Observations of quasars show that the polarization position angle of the emission coming from them varies greatly over time, including periods called rotations during which the angle changes in an orderly manner. The study proposes a method for identifying such events and assessing their statistical significance. The operation of the method is demonstrated using the example of long-term polarimetric observations of the blazars CTA 102, 3C 454.3, and OT 081. During the analysis of light curves, 51 rotations of the polarization position angle were found and it was shown that for CTA 102 and 3C 454.3 the rotations are predominantly oriented in one direction.