Two transient X-ray Quasi-Periodic Oscillations separated by an intermediate state in 1H 0707-495

Abstract

In the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy 1H 0707-495, recently a transient quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) signal with a frequency of $\sim 2.6\times 10^{-4}$ Hz has been detected at a high statistical significance. Here, we reanalyze the same set of XMM-Newton data observed on 2008 February 4 with the Weighted-Wavelet Z-transform (WWZ) method. In addition to confirming the previous findings, we also find another QPO signal with a frequency of $\sim 1.2\times 10^{-4}$ Hz in a separated X-ray emission phase at the significance level of $\sim 3.7σ$. The signal is also found fitting an auto-regressive model though at a lower significance. The frequency ratio between these two signals is $\sim 2:1$. The analysis of other XMM-Newton measurements of 1H 0707-495 also reveals the presence of the $\sim 2.6\times 10^{-4}$ Hz ($\sim 1.2\times 10^{-4}$ Hz) QPO signal on 2007 May 14 (2010 September 17) at the significance level of $\sim 4.2σ$ ($\sim 3.5σ$). The QPO frequency found in this work follows the $f_{QPO}-M_{BH}$ relation reported in previous works spanning from stellar-mass to supermassive black holes. This is the first time to observe two separated transient X-ray QPO signals in active galactic nuclei (AGNs), which sheds new light on the physics of accreting supermassive black holes.

9 pages, 9 figures, 1 table; Accepted for publication in ApJ