The Structure in the Structure Function of Black Hole Light Curves

Abstract

Of the two black holes, M87$^\ast$ and Sgr A$^\ast$, for which event-horizon-scale imaging is currently achievable, only Sgr A$^\ast$ at our Galactic Center exhibits sub-hour variability, making light curve observations of the inner accretion flow especially valuable for time-domain studies of the spacetime and the surrounding plasma. Observed light curves are often sampled with variable cadence, so a structure function is often used to quantify their variability properties. In this work, we assemble a heterogeneous Sgr A$^\ast$ light curve data set from discrete observations acquired over $\sim12$ years {at 230 GHz}, with different instruments, durations, and cadences, and study its structure function in three frameworks. First, we consider analytic predictions for the features of structure functions of stationary random processes with Fourier spectra dictated by the Matérn covariance. We then study the structure functions resulting from lensed movies of synthetic optically thin accretion flows approximated with Matérn covariance in both space and time, and identify which features in the structure function can be attributed to the black-hole geometry. Lastly, we examine the structure functions of a library of $72$ general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations. We find that, in general, magnetically arrested disk (MAD) models produce smoother structure functions with steeper slopes than standard and normal evolution (SANE) counterparts. On time scales of $5-15$ minutes, the observed structure function slope of Sgr A$^\ast$ more closely aligns with the MAD trend, while both simulation types are generally more variable than the data on all sub-hour timescales.