Quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) detected in the X-ray radiation of black hole X-ray binaries (BHXBs) is thought to originate from dynamical processes in the close vicinity of the black holes (BHs), and thus carries important physical information therein. Such a feature is extremely rare in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with supermassive BHs. Here we report on the detection of a possible X-ray QPO signal with a period of 3800 s at a confidence level > 99.99% in the narrowline Seyfert 1 galaxy (NLS1) 1H 0707-495 in one data set in 0.2-10 keV taken with XMM-Newton. The statistical significance is higher than that of most previously reported QPOs in AGNs. The QPO is highly coherent (quality factor Q = ν/∆ν 15) with a high rms fractional variability (∼ 15%). A comprehensive analysis of the optical spectra of this AGN is also performed, yielding a central BH mass 5.2 × 10 6 M ⊙ from the broad emission lines based on the scaling relation. The QPO follows closely the known frequency-BH mass relation, which spans from stellar-mass to supermassive BHs. The absence of the QPO in other observations of the object suggests it a transient phenomenon. We suggest that the (high-frequency) QPOs tend to occur in highly accreting BH systems, from BHXBs to supermassive BHs. Future precise estimation of the BH mass may be used to infer the BH spin from the QPO frequency.

We discuss further observational support of an idea formulated a decade ago by Abramowicz, Kluźniak, McClintock and Remillard. They demonstrated that the 3:2 pairs of frequencies of the twin-peak black hole (BH) high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) scale inversely with the BH masses and that the scaling covers the entire range from stellar to supermassive BHs. For this reason, they believed that the QPOs may be used for accurate measurements of masses and spins of BHs.