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Title: Candidate Periodically Variable Quasars from the Dark Energy Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
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  1. Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; National Center for Supercomputing Applications, 1205 West Clark St., Urbana, IL 61801, USA
  2. Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
  3. Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1110 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
  4. Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab, Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile
  5. Departamento de Física Matemática, Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, CP 66318, São Paulo, SP, 05314-970, Brazil; Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 20921-400, Brazil
  6. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P. O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
  7. Instituto de Fisica Teorica UAM/CSIC, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
  8. CNRS, UMR 7095, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, F-75014, Paris, France; Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7095, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, F-75014, Paris, France
  9. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Pevensey Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QH, UK
  10. Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
  11. Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology, P. O. Box 2450, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
  12. Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
  13. INAF, Astrophysical Observatory of Turin, I-10025 Pino Torinese, Italy
  14. Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) Spain
  15. INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, via G. B. Tiepolo 11, I-34143 Trieste, Italy; Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Via Beirut 2, 34014 Trieste, Italy
  16. Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 20921-400, Brazil; Observatório Nacional, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 20921-400, Brazil
  17. School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
  18. Department of Physics, IIT Hyderabad, Kandi, Telangana 502285, India
  19. Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
  20. National Center for Supercomputing Applications, 1205 West Clark St., Urbana, IL 61801, USA
  21. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P. O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA; Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
  22. Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), 08034 Barcelona, Spain; Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC), Campus UAB, Carrer de Can Magrans, s/n, 08193 Barcelona, Spain
  23. Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria 3122, Australia
  24. Department of Physics, Stanford University, 382 Via Pueblo Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology, P. O. Box 2450, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
  25. Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
  26. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
  27. Australian Astronomical Optics, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australia; Lowell Observatory, 1400 Mars Hill Rd, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA
  28. Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, A28, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
  29. The Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, ACT 2601, Australia
  30. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
  31. George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
  32. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, E-08010 Barcelona, Spain; Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) Spain
  33. Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK; National Center for Supercomputing Applications, 1205 West Clark St., Urbana, IL 61801, USA
  34. Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Peyton Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
  35. Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
  36. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
  37. Computer Science and Mathematics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831
  38. Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Giessenbachstrasse, 85748 Garching, Germany; Universitäts-Sternwarte, Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Scheinerstr. 1, 81679 München, Germany
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Periodically variable quasars have been suggested as close binary supermassive black holes. We present a systematic search for periodic light curves in 625 spectroscopically confirmed quasars with a median redshift of 1.8 in a 4.6 deg2 overlapping region of the Dark Energy Survey Supernova (DES-SN) fields and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stripe 82 (SDSS-S82). Our sample has a unique 20-year long multi-color (griz) light curve enabled by combining DES-SN Y6 observations with archival SDSS-S82 data. The deep imaging allows us to search for periodic light curves in less luminous quasars (down to r ~23.5 mag) powered by less massive black holes (with masses ≳ 108.5M⊙) at high redshift for the first time. We find five candidates with significant (at >99.74% single-frequency significance in at least two bands with a global p-value of ~7 × 10-4–3× 10-3 accounting for the look-elsewhere effect) periodicity with observed periods of ~3–5 years (i.e., 1–2 years in rest frame) having ~4–6 cycles spanned by the observations. If all five candidates are periodically variable quasars, this translates into a detection rate of |$${\sim }0.8^{+0.5}_{-0.3}$$|% or |$${\sim }1.1^{+0.7}_{-0.5}$$| quasar per deg2. Our detection rate is 4–80 times larger than those found by previous searches using shallower surveys over larger areas. This discrepancy is likely caused by differences in the quasar populations probed and the survey data qualities. Furthermore, we discuss implications on the future direct detection of low-frequency gravitational waves. Additionally, continued photometric monitoring will further assess the robustness and characteristics of these candidate periodic quasars to determine their physical origins.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Contributing Organization:
DES Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359; NA0003864; SC0019193; AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1674992
Report Number(s):
arXiv:2008.12329; FERMILAB-PUB--20-179-AE; oai:inspirehep.net:1813875
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Journal Name: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 499; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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