Study of X-Ray Intraday Variability of HBL Blazars Based on Observations Obtained with XMM-Newton

Abstract We present an extensive study on the X-ray intraday variability of 10 teraelectronvolt-emitting high synchrotron peaked blazars (HBLs): 1ES 0229+200, 1ES 0414+009, PKS 0548-322, 1ES 1101-232, 1H 1219+301, H 1426+428, Mrk 501, 1ES 1959+650, PKS 2005-489, and 1ES 2344+514 made with 25 XMM-Newton pointed observations during its operational period. Intraday variability has been estimated in three energy bands: soft (0.3–2 keV), hard (2–10 keV), and total (0.3–10 keV). Although seven out of 10 teraelectronvolt HBLs exhibited some intraday variability at 3σ levels, no major variations exceeding 6% were detected. We explored the spectral properties of the sample by extracting the hardness ratio from the soft and hard bands; no significant variations in the hardness ratio were observed in any source. We performed power spectral density analyses on the variable light curves by fitting power laws, yielding slopes lying in the range of 1.11–2.93 for different HBLs. We briefly discuss possible emission mechanisms and carry out rough estimates for magnetic fields, electron Lorentz factors, and emission region sizes for seven of these HBLs.