We analyzed Kepler light curves of the blazar W2R 1926 + 42 that provided nearly continuous coverage from quarter 11 through quarter 17 ( 589 days between 2011 and 2013 ) and examined some of their flux variability properties .
We investigate the possibility that the light curve is dominated by a large number of individual flares and adopt exponential rise and decay models to investigate the symmetry properties of flares .
We found that those variations of W2R 1926+42 are predominantly asymmetric with weak tendencies toward positive asymmetry ( rapid rise and slow decay ) .
The durations ( D ) and the amplitudes ( F _ { 0 } ) of flares can be fit with log-normal distributions .
The energy ( E ) of each flare is also estimated for the first time .
There are positive correlations between log D and log E with a slope of 1.36 , and between log F _ { 0 } and log E with a slope of 1.12 .
Lomb-Scargle periodograms are used to estimate the power spectral density ( PSD ) shape .
It is well described by a power law with an index ranging between -1.1 and -1.5 .
The sizes of the emission regions , R , are estimated to be in the range of 1.1 \times 10 ^ { 15 } cm – 6.6 \times 10 ^ { 16 } cm .
The flare asymmetry is difficult to explain by a light travel time effect but may be caused by differences between the timescales for acceleration and dissipation of high-energy particles in the relativistic jet .
A jet-in-jet model also could produce the observed log-normal distributions .