Kinematics of and emission from helically orbiting blobs in a relativistic magnetized jet

Abstract

We present a general relativistic (GR) model of jet variability in active galactic nuclei due to orbiting blobs in helical motion along a funnel or cone shaped magnetic surface anchored to the accretion disk near the black hole. Considering a radiation pressure driven flow in the inner region, we find that it stabilizes the flow, yielding Lorentz factors ranging between 1.1 and 7 at small radii for reasonable initial conditions. Assuming these as inputs, simulated light curves (LCs) for the funnel model include Doppler and gravitational shifts, aberration, light bending, and time delay. These LCs are studied for quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) and the power spectral density (PSD) shape and yield an increased amplitude ($\sim$ 12 %); a beamed portion and a systematic phase shift with respect to that from a previous special relativistic model. The results strongly justify implementing a realistic magnetic surface geometry in Schwarzschild geometry to describe effects on emission from orbital features in the jet close to the horizon radius. A power law shaped PSD with a typical slope of $-2$ and QPOs with timescales in the range of $(1.37-130.7)$ days consistent with optical variability in Blazars, emerges from the simulations for black hole masses $M_{\bullet }=(0.5-5)\times 10^8{M}_{\odot }$ and initial Lorentz factors ${\gamma }_{jet,i}=2-10$. The models presented here can be applied to explain radio, optical, and X-ray variability from a range of jetted sources including active galactic nuclei, X-ray binaries and neutron stars.

arXiv comment41 pages, 13 Figures (19 sub-figures), 2 Tables, 1 Appendix; minor corrections made; Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (21)

• Going with the flow: can the base of jets subsume the role of compact accretion disk coronae?
• Jet Launching Structure Resolved Near the Supermassive Black Hole in M87
• Gravitational Bending of Light Near Compact Objects
• Jet opening angles and gamma-ray brightness of AGN
• On the geometrical origin of periodicity in blazar-type sources
• Pulse profiles of millisecond pulsars and their Fourier amplitudes
• Optical Intra-day Variability in Blazars
• The Outburst of the Blazar AO 0235+164 in 2006 December: Shock-in-Jet Interpretation
• A ~4.6 h quasi-periodic oscillation in the BL Lacertae PKS 2155-304?
• Multi-wavelength Observations of the Flaring Gamma-ray Blazar 3C 66A in 2008 October
• Detection of Intra-day Variability Timescales of Four High Energy Peaked Blazars with XMM-Newton
• Multiwavelength Intraday Variability of the BL Lac S5 0716+714
• Violent Intranight Optical Variability of a Radio-Loud Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxy: SDSS J094857.3+002225
• A Very Close Binary Black Hole in a Giant Elliptical Galaxy 3C 66B and its Black Hole Merger
• A possible jet precession in the periodic quasar B0605-085
• Collimating, relativistic, magnetic jets from rotating disks
• The relativistic shift of narrow spectral features from black-hole accretion discs
• X-Ray Variability and the Inner Region in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Light Echoes in Kerr Geometry: A Source of High Frequency QPOs from Random X-ray Bursts
• QPOs from Random X-ray Bursts around Rotating Black Holes
• Orbital signatures from observed light curves of blazars

Cited by in corpus (49)

• Multiwavelength Evidence for Quasi-periodic Modulation in the Gamma-ray Blazar PG 1553+113
• Detection of Possible Quasi-periodic Oscillations in the Long-term Optical Light Curve of the BL Lac Object OJ 287
• A search for cyclical sources of gamma-ray emission on the period range from days to years in the Fermi-LAT sky
• Multiwaveband Quasi--periodic Oscillation in the Blazar 3C 454.3
• Radio and $\gamma$-ray variability in the BL Lac PKS 0219 -164: Detection of quasi-periodic oscillations in the radio light curve
• Blazar Mrk 501 shows rhythmic oscillations in its $\gamma$-ray emission
• Quasi-periodic behaviour in the optical and γ-ray light curves of blazars 3C 66A and B2 1633+38
• Evolving parsec-scale radio structure in the most distant blazar known
• Multi-wavelength temporal and spectral variability of the blazar OJ 287 during and after the December 2015 flare: a major accretion disc contribution
• Detection of a quasi-periodic oscillation in gamma-ray light curve of the high redshift blazar B2 1520+31
• Transient Quasi-Periodic Oscillations at $\gamma$-rays in the TeV Blazar PKS 1510-089
• Evaluating Quasi-Periodic Variations in the $\gamma$-ray Lightcurves of Fermi-LAT Blazars
• A peculiar multi-wavelength flare in the Blazar 3C 454.3
• Multi-waveband quasi-periodic oscillations in the light curves of blazar CTA 102 during its 2016-2017 optical outburst
• A Comprehensive Power Spectral Density Analysis of Astronomical Time Series. II. The Swift/BAT Long Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Quasi-Periodic Oscillations in the long term radio light curves of the blazar AO 0235+164
• Multiwavelength periodicity search in a sample of $\gamma$-ray bright blazars
• Parsec-scale jet properties of the quasar PG 1302$-$102
• Signature of Inverse Compton emission from blazars
• Intra-night optical flux and polarization variability of BL~Lacertae during its 2020 $-$ 2021 high state
• Imaging and variability studies of CTA~102 during the 2016 January $\gamma$-ray flare
• Characterization of Variability in Blazar Light curves
• Multiple Wavelength Variability and Quasi-Periodic Oscillation of PMN J0948+0022
• The nearby extreme accretion and feedback system PDS 456: finding a complex radio-emitting nucleus
• The X-ray outburst of PG 1553+113: A precession effect of two jets in the supermassive black hole binary system
• Kepler light curve analysis of the blazar W2R 1926+42
• High-resolution VLBI observations of and modelling the radio emission from the TDE AT2019dsg
• X-ray Intraday Variability of HBL Blazars with XMM-Newton
• A 31.3 day Transient Quasiperiodic Oscillation in Gamma-ray Emission from Blazar S5 0716+714
• The parsec-scale jet of the neutrino-emitting blazar TXS~0506+056
• Quasi-periodic oscillation detected in $\gamma$-rays in blazar PKS 0346-27
• Transient quasi-periodic oscillations in the gamma-ray light curves of bright blazars
• Monitoring the Galactic Centre with Australia Telescope Compact Array
• X-ray Intraday Variability and Power Spectral Density Profiles of the Blazar 3C 273 with XMM-Newton during 2000-2021
• Search for periodicities in High Energy AGNs with a time-domain approach
• The Most Compact Bright Radio-loud AGN -- II. VLBA Observations of Ten Sources at 43 and 86~GHz
• Revisiting radio variability of the blazar 3C 454.3
• Jet-powered Outflows in Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidate SDSS J1048+0055
• Accurate analytical modeling of light rays in spherically symmetric spacetimes: Applications in the study of black hole accretion disks and polarimetry
• A relativistic orbit model for temporal properties of AGN
• Transient QPOs of Fermi-LAT blazars under the Curved Jet Model
• Separating source-intrinsic and Lorentz invariance violation induced delays in the very high energy emission of blazar flares
• A Supermassive Binary Black Hole Candidate in Mrk 501
• Multi-band optical variability on diverse timescales of blazar 1E 1458.8+2249
• Multiwavelength Variability Analysis of the Blazar PKS 0727-11: A $\sim$168 Days Quasi-periodic Oscillation in Gamma-ray
• Broadband Spectro-temporal Study on Blazar TXS 1700+685
• Variability Study and Searching for QPOs with day-like periods in the blazar S5 0716+714 with TESS
• Multi-Band Optical Variability of Blazar 1ES 2344+514 on Diverse Time-Scales
• Fast and accurate analytical formulas for light propagation in general static, spherically symmetric spacetimes