- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/722/520
- Title:
- Gamma-ray light curves of Fermi blazars
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/722/520
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- This paper presents light curves as well as the first systematic characterization of variability of the 106 objects in the high-confidence Fermi Large Area Telescope Bright AGN Sample (LBAS). Weekly light curves of this sample, obtained during the first 11 months of the Fermi survey (2008 August 4-2009 July 4), are tested for variability and their properties are quantified through autocorrelation function and structure function analysis. For the brightest sources, 3 or 4 day binned light curves are extracted in order to determine power density spectra (PDSs) and to fit the temporal structure of major flares. More than 50% of the sources are found to be variable with high significance, where high states do not exceed 1/4 of the total observation range. Variation amplitudes are larger for flat spectrum radio quasars and low/intermediate synchrotron frequency peaked BL Lac objects. Autocorrelation timescales derived from weekly light curves vary from four to a dozen of weeks.
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- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/726/16
- Title:
- {gamma}-ray loud blazars
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/726/16
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The radio properties of blazars detected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have been observed as part of the VLBA Imaging and Polarimetry Survey. This large, flux-limited sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) provides insights into the mechanism that produces strong {gamma}-ray emission. At lower flux levels, radio flux density does not directly correlate with {gamma}-ray flux. We find that the LAT-detected BL Lac objects tend to be similar to the non-LAT BL Lac objects, but that the LAT-detected FSRQs are often significantly different from the non-LAT FSRQs. The differences between the {gamma}-ray loud and quiet FSRQs can be explained by Doppler boosting; these objects appear to require larger Doppler factors than those of the BL Lac objects. It is possible that the {gamma}-ray loud FSRQs are fundamentally different from the {gamma}-ray quiet FSRQs. Strong polarization at the base of the jet appears to be a signature for {gamma}-ray loud AGNs.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/477/4749
- Title:
- gamma-rays in Fermi blazars
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/477/4749
- Date:
- 17 Jan 2022 00:27:10
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The gamma-ray emission in broad-line blazars is generally explained as inverse Compton (IC) radiation of relativistic electrons in the jet scattering optical-UV photons from the broad-line region (BLR), the so-called BLR external Compton (EC) scenario. We test this scenario on the Fermi gamma-ray spectra of 106 broad-line blazars detected with the highest significance or largest BLR, by looking for cut-off signatures at high energies compatible with {gamma}-{gamma} interactions with BLR photons. We do not find evidence for the expected BLR absorption. For 2/3 of the sources, we can exclude any significant absorption ({tau}_max_<1), while for the remaining 1/3 the possible absorption is constrained to be 1.5-2 orders of magnitude lower than expected. This result holds also dividing the spectra in high- and low-flux states, and for powerful blazars with large BLR. Only 1 object out of 10 seems compatible with substantial attenuation ({tau}_max_>5). We conclude that for 9 out of 10 objects, the jet does not interact with BLR photons. Gamma-rays seem either produced outside the BLR most of the time, or the BLR is ~100 x larger than given by reverberation mapping. This means that (i) EC on BLR photons is disfavoured as the main gamma-ray mechanism, versus IC on IR photons from the torus or synchrotron self-Compton; (ii) the Fermi gamma-ray spectrum is mostly intrinsic, determined by the interaction of the particle distribution with the seed-photon spectrum; and (iii) without suppression by the BLR, broad-line blazars can become copious emitters above 100GeV, as demonstrated by 3C 454.3. We expect the CTA sky to be much richer of broad-line blazars than previously thought.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/other/RAA/18.56
- Title:
- gamma-ray spectrum for Fermi blazars
- Short Name:
- J/other/RAA/18.5
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The curvature of the {gamma}-ray spectrum in blazars may reflect the intrinsic distribution of emitting electrons, which will further give some information on the possible acceleration and cooling processes in the emitting region. The {gamma}-ray spectra of Fermi blazars are normally fitted either by a single power-law (PL) or a log-normal (call Logarithmic Parabola, LP) form. The possible reason for this difference is not clear. We statistically explore this issue based on the different observational properties of 1419 Fermi blazars in the 3LAC Clean Sample.We find that the {gamma}-ray flux (100MeV-100GeV) and variability index follow bimodal distributions for PL and LP blazars, where the {gamma}-ray flux and variability index show a positive correlation. However, the distributions of {gamma}-ray luminosity and redshift follow a unimodal distribution. Our results suggest that the bimodal distribution of {gamma}-ray fluxes for LP and PL blazars may not be intrinsic and all blazars may have an intrinsically curved {gamma}-ray spectrum, and the PL spectrum is just caused by the fitting effect due to less photons.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/813/51
- Title:
- {gamma}-ray to IR study of the blazar CTA 102
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/813/51
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We perform a multi-wavelength polarimetric study of the quasar CTA 102 during an extraordinarily bright {gamma}-ray outburst detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope in 2012 September-October when the source reached a flux of F_>100MeV_=5.2+/-0.4x10^-6^photons/cm2/s. At the same time, the source displayed an unprecedented optical and near-infrared (near-IR) outburst. We study the evolution of the parsec-scale jet with ultra-high angular resolution through a sequence of 80 total and polarized intensity Very Long Baseline Array images at 43GHz, covering the observing period from 2007 June to 2014 June. We find that the {gamma}-ray outburst is coincident with flares at all the other frequencies and is related to the passage of a new superluminal knot through the radio core. The powerful {gamma}-ray emission is associated with a change in direction of the jet, which became oriented more closely to our line of sight ({theta}~1.2{deg}) during the ejection of the knot and the {gamma}-ray outburst. During the flare, the optical polarized emission displays intra-day variability and a clear clockwise rotation of electric vector position angles (EVPAs), which we associate with the path followed by the knot as it moves along helical magnetic field lines, although a random walk of the EVPA caused by a turbulent magnetic field cannot be ruled out. We locate the {gamma}-ray outburst a short distance downstream of the radio core, parsecs from the black hole. This suggests that synchrotron self-Compton scattering of NIR to ultraviolet photons is the probable mechanism for the {gamma}-ray production.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AZh/71/189
- Title:
- Gas Kinematics from Halpha line in NGC 4151
- Short Name:
- J/AZh/71/189
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The nucleus spectra of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 4151 obtained in 1988-1991 were analyzed in order to study the profile variability of the Ha line resulting from ionizing continuum flux variations. At the time of this galaxy monitoring, the response of the integral flux of the Ha line was almost linear and the average profile shape did not change by more than 5%.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/731/100
- Title:
- 148GHz ACT extragalactic sources catalog
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/731/100
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We report on extragalactic sources detected in a 455deg^2^ map of the southern sky made with data at a frequency of 148GHz from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) 2008 observing season. We provide a catalog of 157 sources with flux densities spanning two orders of magnitude: from 15mJy to 1500mJy. Comparison to other catalogs shows that 98% of the ACT detections correspond to sources detected at lower radio frequencies. Three of the sources appear to be associated with the brightest cluster galaxies of low-redshift X-ray-selected galaxy clusters. Estimates of the radio to millimeter-wave spectral indices and differential counts of the sources further bolster the hypothesis that they are nearly all radio sources, and that their emission is not dominated by re-emission from warm dust. In a bright (>50mJy) 148GHz selected sample with complete cross-identifications from the Australia Telescope 20GHz survey, we observe an average steepening of the spectra between 5, 20, and 148GHz with median spectral indices of {alpha}_5-20_=-0.07+/-0.06, {alpha}_20-148_=-0.39+/-0.04, and {alpha}_5-148_=-0.20+/-0.03. When the measured spectral indices are taken into account, the 148GHz differential source counts are consistent with previous measurements at 30GHz in the context of a source count model dominated by radio sources. Extrapolating with an appropriately rescaled model for the radio source counts, the Poisson contribution to the spatial power spectrum from synchrotron-dominated sources with flux density less than 20mJy is C^Sync^=(2.8+/-0.3)x10^-6^{mu}K^2^.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/742/27
- Title:
- 15GHz and jet properties of MOJAVE blazars
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/742/27
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We investigate the Fermi Large Area Telescope {gamma}-ray and 15GHz Very Long Baseline Array radio properties of a joint {gamma}-ray and radio-selected sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) obtained during the first 11 months of the Fermi mission (2008 August 4-2009 July 5). Our sample contains the brightest 173 AGNs in these bands above declination -30{deg} during this period, and thus probes the full range of {gamma}-ray loudness ({gamma}-ray to radio band luminosity ratio) in the bright blazar population. The latter quantity spans at least 4 orders of magnitude, reflecting a wide range of spectral energy distribution (SED) parameters in the bright blazar population. The BL Lac objects, however, display a linear correlation of increasing {gamma}-ray loudness with synchrotron SED peak frequency, suggesting a universal SED shape for objects of this class.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/604/A111
- Title:
- 22GHz image of 3C 273
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/604/A111
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- RadioAstron is a 10m orbiting radio telescope mounted on the Spektr-R satellite, launched in 2011, performing Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry (SVLBI) observations supported by a global ground array of radio telescopes. With an apogee of ~350000km, it is offering for the first time the possibility to perform as-resolution imaging in the cm-band. The RadioAstron Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) polarization Key Science Project (KSP) aims at exploiting the unprecedented angular resolution provided by RadioAstron to study jet launching/collimation and magnetic-field configuration in AGN jets. The targets of our KSP are some of the most powerful blazars in the sky. We present observations at 22GHz of 3C 273, performed in 2014, designed to reach a maximum baseline of approximately nine Earth diameters. Reaching an angular resolution of 0.3mas, we study a particularly low-activity state of the source, and estimate the nuclear region brightness temperature, comparing with the extreme one detected one year before during the RadioAstron early science period.We also make use of the VLBA-BU-BLAZAR survey data, at 43GHz, to study the kinematics of the jet in a ~1.5-year time window. We find that the nuclear brightness temperature is two orders of magnitude lower than the exceptionally high value detected in 2013 with RadioAstron at the same frequency (1.4x10^13^K, source-frame), and even one order of magnitude lower than the equipartition value. The kinematics analysis at 43 GHz shows that a new component was ejected ~2 months after the 2013 epoch, visible also in our 22GHz map presented here. Consequently this was located upstream of the core during the brightness temperature peak. Fermi-LAT observations for the period 2010-2014 do not show any gamma-ray flare in conjunction with the passage of the new component by the core at 43GHz. These observations confirm that the previously detected extreme brightness temperature in 3C 273, exceeding the inverse Compton limit, is a short-lived phenomenon caused by a temporary departure from equipartition. Thus, the availability of interferometric baselines capable of providing as angular resolution does not systematically imply measured brightness temperatures over the known physical limits for astrophysical sources.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/137/3718
- Title:
- 15GHz monitoring of AGN jets with VLBA
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/137/3718
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present images from a long-term program (MOJAVE: Monitoring of Jets in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with VLBA Experiments) to survey the structure and evolution of parsec-scale jet phenomena associated with bright radio-loud active galaxies in the northern sky. The observations consist of 2424 15GHz Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) images of a complete flux-density-limited sample of 135 AGNs above declination -20{deg}, spanning the period 1994 August to 2007 September. These data were acquired as part of the MOJAVE and 2cm Survey programs, and from the VLBA archive. The sample-selection criteria are based on multi-epoch parsec-scale (VLBA) flux density, and heavily favor highly variable and compact blazars. The sample includes nearly all the most prominent blazars in the northern sky, and is well suited for statistical analysis and comparison with studies at other wavelengths. Our multi-epoch and stacked-epoch images show 94% of the sample to have apparent one-sided jet morphologies, most likely due to the effects of relativistic beaming. Of the remaining sources, five have two-sided parsec-scale jets, and three are effectively unresolved by the VLBA at 15GHz, with essentially all of the flux density contained within a few tenths of a milliarcsecond.
