An X-ray periodicity of $\sim$1.8 hours in a narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 766 [HEAP]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1707.03586


In the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 766, a Quasi-Periodic Oscillation (QPO) signal with a period of $\sim6450$ s is detected in the {\it XMM-Newton} data collected on 2005 May 31. This QPO signal is highly statistical significant at the confidence level of $>5.1\sigma$ with the quality factor of $Q=f/\triangle f>13.6$. The X-ray intensity changed by a factor of 3 with root mean square fractional variability of $14.3\%$. Furthermore, this QPO signal presents in the data of all three EPIC detectors and two RGS cameras and its frequency follows the $f_{\rm QPO}$-$M_{\rm BH}$ relation spanning from stellar-mass to supermassive black holes. Interestingly, a possible QPO signal with a period of $\sim4200$ s had been reported in the literature. The frequency ratio of these two QPO signals is $\sim$ 3:2. Our result is also in support of the hypothesis that the QPO signals can be just transient. The spectral analysis reveals that the contribution of the soft excess component below $\sim$ 1 keV is different between epochs with and without QPO, this property as well as the former frequency-ratio are well detected in X-ray BH binaries, which may have shed some lights on the physical origin of our event.

Read this paper on arXiv…

P. Zhang, P. Zhang, J. Yan, et. al.
Thu, 13 Jul 17
29/60

Comments: 7 pages, 4 figures