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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 2(514), p. 682-690, 1999

DOI: 10.1086/306980

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A Cutoff in the X-ray Fluctuation Power Density Spectrum of the Seyfert 1 Galaxy NGC 3516

Journal article published in 1998 by Rick Edelson ORCID, Kirpal Nandra
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

During 1997 March-July, XTE observed the bright, strongly variable Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 3516 once every ~12.8 hr for 4.5 months and nearly continuously (with interruptions due to SAA passage but not Earth occultation) for a 4.2 day period in the middle. These were followed by ongoing monitoring once every ~4.3 days. These data are used to construct the first well-determined X-ray fluctuation power density spectrum (PDS) of an active galaxy to span more than 4 decades of usable temporal frequency. The PDS shows no signs of any strict or quasi-periodicity, but does show a progressive flattening of the power-law slope from -1.74 at short time scales to -0.73 at longer time scales. This is the clearest observation to date of the long-predicted cutoff in the PDS. The characteristic variability time scale corresponding to this cutoff temporal frequency is 1 month. Although it is unclear how this time scale may be interpreted in terms of a physical size or process, there are several promising candidate models. The PDS appears similar to those seen for Galactic black hole candidates such as Cyg X-1, suggesting that these two classes of objects with very different luminosities and putative black hole masses (differing by more than a factor of 10^5) may have similar X-ray generation processes and structures. ; Comment: 21 pages, incl. 5 figures, AASTeX