Effects of orbital eccentricity and periastron advance on the compact SMBHB candidate in blazar PKS 2131-021

Kareem, Fazal A (2023) Effects of orbital eccentricity and periastron advance on the compact SMBHB candidate in blazar PKS 2131-021. Masters thesis, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata.

Text (MS dissertation of Fazal A Kareem (18MS042)) Thesis_18MS042.pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (13MB)

Abstract

Blazars that show periodic variations in their light curves are potential Supermassive Black Hole Binaries (SMBHB) candidates. In this scenario, periodicity naturally arises due to the orbital motion of the active SMBH. It was recently argued that blazar PKS 2131-021 exhibited unique radio flux density variations during 1975-2019, including epochs of sinusoidal variations. This SMBHB candidate was modeled to move in a circular orbit with a period of ∼ 2.08 years in its rest frame. The aim of this project is to extend their prescription to include the effects of orbital eccentricity and the general relativistic periastron advance in the post-Newtonian approximation to General Relativity. In this study, we estimated eccentricity and periastron advance of the system to be e ∼ 0.063±0.005, and ω˙ ∼ 2.05±0.145rad days⁻¹. We also estimate the total mass of the SMBHB system M∼ 3.1 × 10⁹ ± 3.5 × 10⁸Mʘ

Actions (login required)

View Item