Affiliation:
1. Key Laboratory for Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , 19B Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049 , China
2. Dongguan Neutron Science Center , 1 Zhongziyuan Road, Dongguan 523808 , China
3. School of Physical Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049 , China
4. National Astronomical Observatories of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences , A20 Datun Road, Beijing 100012 , China
5. School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049 , China
Abstract
ABSTRACT
We conduct a systematic search for quasars with periodic variations from the archival photometric data of the Zwicky Transient Facility by cross-matching with the quasar catalogues of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Véron-Cetty and Véron. We first select out 184 primitive periodic candidates using the generalized Lomb–Scargle periodogram and autocorrelation function and then estimate their statistical significance of periodicity based on two red-noise models, i.e. damped random walk (DRW) and single power-law (SPL) models. As such, we finally identify 106 (DRW) and 86 (SPL) candidates with the most significant periodic variations out of 143 700 quasars. We further compare DRW and SPL models using Bayes factors, which indicate a relative preference of the SPL model for our primitive sample. We thus adopt the candidates identified with SPL as the final sample and summarize its basic properties. We extend the light curves of the selected candidates by supplying other archival survey data to verify their periodicity. However, only three candidates (with 6–8 cycles of periods) meet the selection criteria. This result clearly implies that, instead of being strictly periodic, the variability must be quasi-periodic or caused by stochastic red-noise. This exerts a challenge to the existing search approaches and calls for developing new effective methods.
Funder
National Key Research and Development Program of China
NSFC
CAS
National Science Foundation
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
University of Maryland
Eotvos Lorand University
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
California Institute of Technology
Columbia University
University of Oxford
Weizmann Institute of Science
STFC
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science
University of Utah
Harvard University
Johns Hopkins University
Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam
AIP
Nanjing University
National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences
New Mexico State University
Ohio State University
Pennsylvania State University
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Space Telescope Science Institute
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
University of Arizona
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Toronto
University of Virginia
Yale University
Yunnan University
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Space and Planetary Science,Astronomy and Astrophysics