Publication: Systematic Search for γ-Ray Periodicity in Active Galactic Nuclei Detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope
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Publication Date
2020-06
Authors
Peñil del Campo, Pablo
Domínguez, A.
Buson, S.
Ajello, M.
Otero Santos, J.
Nemmen, R.
Cutini, S.
Rani, B.
Franckowiak, A.
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American Astronomical Society
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Abstract
We use nine years of gamma-ray data provided by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) to systematically study the light curves (LCs) of more than 2000 active galactic nuclei (AGN) included in recent Fermi-LAT catalogs. Ten different techniques are used, which are organized in an automatic periodicity-search pipeline, in order to search for evidence of periodic emission in gamma rays. Understanding the processes behind this puzzling phenomenon will provide a better view about the astrophysical nature of these extragalactic sources. However, the observation of temporal patterns in gamma-ray LCs of AGN is still challenging. Despite the fact that there have been efforts to characterize the temporal emission of some individual sources, a systematic search for periodicities by means of a full likelihood analysis applied to large samples of sources was missing. Our analysis finds 11 AGN, of which 9 are identified for the first time, showing periodicity at more than 4 sigma in at least four algorithms. These findings will help in solving questions related to the astrophysical origin of this periodic behavior.
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© 2020. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. P.P., A.D., and J.A.B. acknowledge the support of the FPA2017-85668-P of the Agencia Estatal de Investigación del Ministerio de Ciencias, Innovación y Universidades. A.D. is also thankful for the support of the Ramón y Cajal program from the Spanish MINECO. We thank the anonymous referee for a careful review.; The Fermi LAT Collaboration acknowledges generous ongoing support from a number of agencies and institutes that have supported both the development and the operation of the LAT as well as scientific data analysis. These include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Energy in the United States, the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Institut National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules in France, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Italy, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Japan, and the K..A..Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish National Space Board in Sweden. Additional support for science analysis during the operations phase is gratefully acknowledged from the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Italy and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales in France. This work performed in part under DOE Contract DE-AC02-76SF00515.