TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schleicher, Bernd
A1  - Arbet-Engels, Axel
A1  - Baack, Dominik
A1  - Balbo, Matteo
A1  - Biland, Adrian
A1  - Blank, Michael
A1  - Bretz, Thomas
A1  - Bruegge, Kai
A1  - Bulinski, Michael
A1  - Buss, Jens
A1  - Doerr, Manuel
A1  - Dorner, Daniela
A1  - Elsaesser, Dominik
A1  - Grischagin, Sergej
A1  - Hildebrand, Dorothee
A1  - Linhoff, Lena
A1  - Mannheim, Karl
A1  - Mueller, Sebastian Achim
A1  - Neise, Dominik
A1  - Neronov, Andrii
A1  - Noethe, Maximilian
A1  - Paravac, Aleksander
A1  - Rhode, Wolfgang
A1  - Schulz, Florian
A1  - Sedlaczek, Kevin
A1  - Shukla, Amit
A1  - Sliusar, Vitalii
A1  - Willert, Elan
A1  - Walter, Roland
T1  - Fractional Variability—A Tool to Study Blazar Variability
JF  - Galaxies
N2  - Active Galactic Nuclei emit radiation over the whole electromagnetic spectrum up to TeV energies. Blazars are one subtype with their jets pointing towards the observer. One of their typical features is extreme variability on timescales, from minutes to years. The fractional variability is an often used parameter for investigating the degree of variability of a light curve. Different detection methods and sensitivities of the instruments result in differently binned data and light curves with gaps. As they can influence the physics interpretation of the broadband variability, the effects of these differences on the fractional variability need to be studied. In this paper, we study the systematic effects of completeness in time coverage and the sampling rate. Using public data from instruments monitoring blazars in various energy ranges, we study the variability of the bright TeV blazars Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 over the electromagnetic spectrum, taking into account the systematic effects, and compare our findings with previous results. Especially in the TeV range, the fractional variability is higher than in previous studies, which can be explained by the much longer (seven years compared to few weeks) and more complete data sample.
KW  - blazars
KW  - variability
KW  - fractional variability
KW  - active galactic nuclei
Y1  - 2019
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-197348
SN  - 2075-4434
VL  - 7
IS  - 2
ER  -