Optical quasi-periodic oscillation and color behavior of blazar PKS 2155-304

Abstract

PKS 2155-304 is a well studied BL Lac object in the southern sky. The historical optical data during different period have been collected and compiled. Light curves with a time span of 35 years have been constructed. The R-band light curve has been analyzed by means of three methods: epoch folding method, Jurkevich method and discrete correlation function (DCF) method. It is derived that there is an evident periodic component of 317 days (i.e. 0.87 yr) superposed on a long-term trend with large-amplitude variation in the light curve. The variability of this source is accompanied by a slight color variation, and the brightness and color index are correlated with each other. On the long time-scale, PKS 2155-304 exhibits a tendency of bluer-when-brighter, which means the spectrum becomes flatter when the source brightens.

9 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in RAA (Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics)

References in corpus (3)

• Modeling the Emission Processes in Blazars
• Multi-colour optical monitoring of eight red blazars
• Long-term optical variability of PKS 2155-304

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