A Comprehensive Study on the Variation Phenomena of AO 0235+164

Abstract

Abstract The variation mechanism of blazars is a long-standing open question. Observations of polarization can provide us with more information to constrain models. In this work, we collect long-term multiwavelength data on AO 0235+164, and analyse the correlations between them by using the local cross-correlation function. We find that both γ-ray and the optical V-band light curves are correlated with the radio light curve beyond the 3σ significance level. The regions emitting the γ-ray and optical radiation coincide within errors, and are located pc upstream of the core region of 15 GHz, which is beyond the broad-line region. The color index shows the redder-when-brighter trend in the low flux state, but turns to the bluer-when-brighter trend in the high flux state, while the γ-ray spectral index always shows the softer-when-brighter trend. We propose that such complex variation trends can be explained by the increasing jet component with two constant components. The optical polarization degree (PD) flares and optical flux flares are not synchronous. It seems that one flux peak is sandwiched by two PD peaks, which have inverse rotation trajectories in the qu plane. The helical jet model can schematically show these characteristics of polarization with fine-tuned parameters. The change in viewing angle is suggested to be the primary variable that leads to all these variations, although other possibilities such as the shock-in-jet model or the hadronic model are not excluded completely.