Gaussian Process Modeling Fermi-LAT γ-ray Blazar Variability: A Sample of Blazars with γ-ray Quasi-periodicities
Abstract
Blazar variability may be driven by stochastic processes. On the other hand, quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) behaviors are recently reported to be detected in Fermi-LAT data of blazars. However, the significances of these QPO signals given by traditional Fourier-like methods are still questioned. We analyze γ-ray light curves of the QPO blazars with two Gaussian process methods, CARMA and celerite, to examine the appropriateness of Gaussian processes for characterizing γ-ray light curves of blazars and the existence of the reported QPOs. We collect a sample of 27 blazars with possible γ-ray periodicity and generate their 11 years Fermi-LAT light curves. We apply the Gaussian process models to the γ-ray light curves, and build their intrinsic power spectral densities (PSDs). The results show that in general the γ-ray light curves can be characterized by CARMA and celerite models, indicating that γ-ray variabilities of blazars are essentially Gaussian processes. The resulting PSDs are generally the red noise shapes with slopes between -0.6 and -1.7. Possible evidence for the γ-ray QPOs in PKS 0537-441 and PG 1553+113 are found in the Gaussian process modelings.