Detection of intra-day variability timescales of four high-energy peaked blazars with XMM-Newton

Abstract

We selected a sample of 24 XMM-Newton light curves (LCs) of four high energy peaked blazars, PKS 0548-322, ON 231, 1ES 1426+428, and PKS 2155-304. These data comprise continuous LCs of 7.67-18.97 hr in length. We searched for possible quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) and intra-day variability (IDV) timescales in the LCs of these blazars. We found a likely QPO in one LC of PKS 2155-304 which was reported elsewhere. In the remaining 23 LCs we found hints of possible weak QPOs in one LC of each ON 231 and PKS 2155-304, but neither is statistically significant. We found IDV timescales that ranged from 15.7 to 46.8 ks in eight LCs. In 13 LCs any variability timescales were longer than the length of the data. Assuming that the possible weak QPO periods in the blazars PKS 2155-304 and ON 231 are real and are associated with the innermost portions of their accretion disk, we can estimate that their central black hole masses exceed 1.2 × 107 M⊙. Emission models for radio-loud active galactic nuclei that could explain our results are briefly discussed.