Possible Gravitational Microlensing Events in the Optical Lightcurve of Active Galaxy S5 0716+714
arXiv:2208.13185 · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/acae91
Abstract
A well-known active galaxy of the blazar type, S5 0716+714, is characterized by a particularly high variability duty cycle on short-time scales at optical frequencies. As such, the source was subjected to numerous monitoring programs, including both ground-based as well as space-borne telescopes. On closer inspection of the most recent accumulation of the data provided by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, we have noticed several conspicuous events with `volcano-like' symmetric shape, lasting all for several hours, which closely resemble the achromatic events detected with the previous Whole Earth Blazar Telescope campaigns targeting the source. We propose that those peculiar features could be due to the gravitational micro-lensing of the innermost segments of the precessing jet in the system, by a binary lens. We study the magnification pattern of the lens with the inverse-ray shooting method, and the source trajectory parameters with the Python package MuLensModel. In this way, we were able to fit successfully all the selected events with a single lens, adjusting slightly only the source trajectory parameters for each lensing event. Based on the fit results, we postulate the presence of a massive binary lens, containing an intermediate-mass black hole, possibly even a super-massive one, and a much less massive companion (by a factor of ), located within the host galaxy of the blazar, most likely the central kiloparsec region. We discuss the major physical implications of the proposed scenario regarding the quest for the intermediate-mass and dual supermassive black holes in active galaxies.
arXiv commentaccepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal
References in corpus (30)
- The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
- GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
- Intermediate-Mass Black Holes
- Observational evidence for intermediate-mass black holes
- Implications of very rapid TeV variability in blazars
- Asymptotic structure of Poynting dominated jets
- Detection of the host galaxy of S5 0716+714
- Microlensing with advanced contour integration algorithm: Green's theorem to third order, error control, optimal sampling and limb darkening
- The Outburst of the Blazar S5 0716+71 in 2011 October: Shock in a Helical Jet
- Radio to gamma-ray variability study of blazar S5 0716+714
- VBBinaryLensing: a public package for microlensing light curve computation
- Search for intermediate mass black hole binaries in the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
- Globular Cluster Systems in Brightest Cluster Galaxies. III: Beyond Bimodality
- Testing the inverse-Compton catastrophe scenario in the intra-day variable blazar S5 0716+71. I. Simultaneous broadband observations during November 2003
- Kinematic Study of the Blazar S5 0716+714
- A Fast Flare and Direct Redshift Constraint in Far-UV Spectra of the Blazar S50716+714
- Multifrequency Photo-polarimetric WEBT Observation Campaign on the Blazar S5 0716+714: Source Microvariability and Search for Characteristic Timescales
- Gas depletion in primordial globular clusters due to accretion onto stellar-mass black holes
- Modeling microlensing events with MulensModel
- The kinematics in the pc-scale jets of AGN The case of S5 1803+784
- The Long Term Optical Variability of the BL Lac object S5 0716+714: Evidence for a Precessing Jet
- The dual nature of blazar fast variability. Space and ground observations of S5 0716+714
- Investigating the retention of intermediate-mass black holes in star clusters using N-body simulations
- Connection between inner jet kinematics and broadband flux variability in the BL Lac object S5 0716+714
- Dynamical Black Hole Masses of BL Lac Objects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
- Searching for intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters with gravitational microlensing
- Symmetric Achromatic Variability in Active Galaxies -- A Powerful New Gravitational Lensing Probe?
- Generation of gravitational waves and tidal disruptions in clumpy galaxies
- A search for black hole microlensing signatures in globular cluster NGC 6656 (M 22)
- New Tests of Millilensing in the Blazar PKS 1413+135