Statistical Analysis of the Microvariable AGN Source Mrk 501
1
Department of Physics, University of Colorado Denver, Campus Box 157, P.O. Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA
2
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Galaxies 2018, 6(1), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/galaxies6010020
Received: 31 October 2017 / Revised: 10 January 2018 / Accepted: 24 January 2018 / Published: 5 February 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microvariability of Blazars)
We report on the optical observations and analysis of the high-energy peaked BL Lac object (HBL), Mrk 501, at redshift z = 0.033. We can confirm microvariable behavior over the course of minutes on several occasions per night. As an alternative to the commonly understood dynamical model of random variations in intensity of the AGN, we develop a relativistic beaming model with a minimum of free parameters, which allows us to infer changes in the line of sight angles for the motion of the different relativistic components. We hope our methods can be used in future studies of beamed emission in other active microvariable sources, similar to the one we explored.
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Keywords:
galaxies: active; BL Lacertae objects: general; BL Lacertae objects: individual: Mrk 501; galaxies: jets
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MDPI and ACS Style
Sadun, A.C.; Asadi-Zeydabadi, M.; Mills, B.; Moody, J.W. Statistical Analysis of the Microvariable AGN Source Mrk 501. Galaxies 2018, 6, 20.
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