Fast variability of gamma-ray emission from supermassive black hole binary OJ 287
arXiv:1011.4020 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.17997.x
Abstract
We report the discovery of fast variability of gamma-ray flares from blazar OJ 287. This blazar is known to be powered by binary system of supermassive black holes. The observed variability time scale T_var < 3-10 hr is much shorter than the light crossing time of more massive (1.8x10^10 solar masses) black hole and is comparable to the light crossing time of the less massive (1.3x10^8 solar masses) black hole. This indicates that gamma-ray emission is produced by relativistic jet ejected by the black hole of smaller mass. Detection of gamma rays s with energies in excess of 10 GeV during the fast variable flares constrains the Doppler factor of the jet to be larger than 4. Possibility of the study of orbital modulation of emission from relativistic jet makes OJ 287 a unique laboratory for the study of the mechanism(s) of formation of jets by black holes, in particular, of the response of the jet parameters to the changes of the parameters of the medium from which the black hole accretes and into which the jet expands.
Accepted to MNRAS, 6 pages, 5 figures
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- Precession-induced Variability in AGN Jets and OJ 287
- Flux and polarization variability of OJ 287 during early 2016 outburst
- A hadronic emission model for black hole-disc impacts in the blazar OJ 287
- Peculiar outbursts of an ultra luminous source likely signs of an aperiodic disc-wind