ABSTRACT
The nature of the intense X-ray emission from powerful extragalactic jets at large (>1 kpc) scale is still debated. The scenario that invokes the inverse Compton scattering of the cosmic ...microwave background by electrons is challenged by the lack of gamma-ray emission in the GeV band. An alternative assumes synchrotron emission by a distinct population of ultra-high energy electrons. Here, we present a concrete attempt to apply this scenario, exploring the specific model in which the ultra-high energy electrons are accelerated in a shear layer surrounding the jet. We limit the study to non-relativistic flows and particle acceleration is treated by a Fokker–Planck equation. The observed relation between low energy (radio, optical) and X-ray emission prompts us to assume that the required population of pre-accelerated particles is provided by a shock responsible for the acceleration of the electrons emitting at low frequencies. We apply the model to the emission of the principal knots of the jets of PKS 0637–752 and PKS 1136–135, two of the best-studied objects. For the set of fiducial parameters adopted, the condition that the jet power does not exceeds a limiting value of 1048 erg s−1 constrains the magnetic field above $10\, \mu$G and indicates moderate beaming (δ ≃ 2) for PKS 0637–752. For both sources, the requirement that acceleration of the electrons proceeds faster than radiative cooling can be met if the magnetic turbulence in the shear layer follows a Kolmogorov spectrum, I(k) ∝ k−q with q = 5/3, but cannot satisfied in the Bohm-like case (q = 1).
The Fermi blazar sequence Ghisellini, G; Righi, C; Costamante, L ...
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
07/2017, Volume:
469, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Abstract
We revisit the blazar sequence exploiting the complete, flux-limited sample of blazars with known redshift detected by the Fermi satellite after 4 yr of operations (the 3LAC sample). We ...divide the sources into γ-ray luminosity bins, collect all the archival data for all blazars, and construct their spectral energy distribution (SED). We describe the average SED of blazars in the same luminosity bin through a simple phenomenological function consisting of two broken power laws connecting with a power law describing the radio emission. We do that separately for BL Lacs and for flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and also for all blazars together. The main results are: (i) FSRQs display approximately the same SED as the luminosity increases, but the relative importance of the high-energy peak increases; (ii) as a consequence, the X-ray spectra of FSRQs become harder for larger luminosities; (iii) BL Lacs indeed form a sequence: they become redder (i.e. smaller peak frequencies) with increasing luminosities, with a softer γ-ray slope and a larger dominance of the high-energy peak; (iv) for all blazars (BL Lacs+FSRQs), these properties become more prominent, as the highest luminosity bin is populated mostly by FSRQs and the lowest luminosity bin mostly by BL Lacs. This agrees with the original blazar sequence, although BL Lacs never have an average γ-ray slope as hard as found in the original sequence. (v) At high luminosities, a large fraction of FSRQs show signs of thermal emission from the accretion disc, contributing to the optical–UV (ultraviolet).
We recently proposed that structured (spine-sheath) jets associated with BL Lac objects could offer a suitable environment for the production of the extragalactic high-energy (E > 100 TeV) neutrino ...recently revealed by IceCube. Our previous analysis was limited to low-power BL Lac objects. We extend our preliminary study to the entire BL Lac population, assuming that the entire diffuse emission is accounted for by these sources. The neutrino output from a single source depends on a relatively large number of parameters. However, for several of them we have constraints coming from observations and previous application of the structured jet model to blazar and radiogalaxy emission. The observed neutrino spectrum then fixes the remaining free parameters. We assume that the power of cosmic rays as well as the radiative luminosity of the sheath depends linearly on the jet power. In turn, we assume that the latter is well traced by the γ-ray luminosity. We exploit the BL Lac γ-ray luminosity function and its cosmic evolution as recently inferred from Fermi-LAT data to derive the expected neutrino cumulative intensity from the entire BL Lac population. When considering only the low-power BL Lacs, a large cosmic ray power for each source is required to account for the neutrino flux. Instead, if BL Lacs of all powers produce neutrinos, the power demand decreases, and the required cosmic ray power becomes of the same order of the radiative jet power. In our scheme, the maximum energy of cosmic rays is constrained to be ≲ few PeV by the lack of events above few PeV. Although such a value is obtained through a fine-tuning with the data, we show that it could be possibly related to the equilibrium between cooling and acceleration processes for high-energy cosmic rays. We also discuss the prospects for the direct association of IceCube events with BL Lacs, providing an estimate of the expected counts for the most promising sources.
Collimated outflows (jets) appear to be a ubiquitous phenomenon associated with the accretion of material onto a compact object. Despite this ubiquity, many fundamental physics aspects of jets are ...still poorly understood and constrained. These include the mechanism of launching and accelerating jets, the connection between these processes and the nature of the accretion flow, and the role of magnetic fields; the physics responsible for the collimation of jets over tens of thousands to even millions of gravitational radii of the central accreting object; the matter content of jets; the location of the region(s) accelerating particles to TeV (possibly even PeV and EeV) energies (as evidenced by
γ
-ray emission observed from many jet sources) and the physical processes responsible for this particle acceleration; the radiative processes giving rise to the observed multi-wavelength emission; and the topology of magnetic fields and their role in the jet collimation and particle acceleration processes. This chapter reviews the main knowns and unknowns in our current understanding of relativistic jets, in the context of the main model ingredients for Galactic and extragalactic jet sources. It discusses aspects specific to active Galactic nuclei (especially blazars) and microquasars, and then presents a comparative discussion of similarities and differences between them.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
ABSTRACT
We investigate with relativistic MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) simulations the dissipation physics of BL Lac jets, by studying the synchrotron polarization signatures of particles accelerated by ...the kink instability in a magnetically dominated plasma column. The non-linear stage of the kink instability generates current sheets, where particles can be efficiently accelerated via magnetic reconnection. We identify current sheets as regions where s = Jδ/B is above some predefined threshold (where B is the field strength, J is the current density, and δ is the grid scale), and assume that the particle injection efficiency scales as ∝J2. X-ray emitting particles have short cooling times, so they only probe the field geometry of their injection sites. In contrast, particles emitting in the optical band, which we follow self-consistently as they propagate away from their injection sites while cooling, sample a larger volume, and so they may be expected to produce different polarimetric signatures. We find that the degree of polarization is roughly the same between X-ray and optical bands, because even the optical emitting particles do not travel far from the current sheet where they were injected, due to lack of sufficient kink-generated turbulence. The polarization angle shows a different temporal evolution between the two bands, due to the different regions probed by X-ray and optical emitting particles. In view of the upcoming IXPE satellite, our results can help constrain whether kink-induced reconnection (as opposed to shocks) can be the source of multiwavelength emission from BL Lacs.
Canonical high-power blazars Ghisellini, G.; Tavecchio, F.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
August 2009, Volume:
397, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The jets of powerful blazars propagate within relatively dense regions of radiation produced externally to the jet. This radiation is a key ingredient to understand the origin of the high-energy ...emission of blazars, from the X-ray to the γ-ray energy band. The main components contributing to the external radiation field are the accretion disc emission, including its X-ray corona, the broad-line region, the infrared emitting torus and the cosmic background radiation. Their importance changes as a function of the distance from the black hole and of the value of the bulk Lorentz factor of the jet. These external radiation fields control the amount of the inverse Compton radiation with respect to the synchrotron flux. Therefore, the predicted spectral energy distribution (SED) will depend on where the jet dissipates part of its energy to produce the observed radiation. We investigate in detail how the SED changes as a function of the location of the jet dissipation region by assuming rather ‘standard’ (i.e. ‘canonical’) prescriptions for the accretion disc and its X-ray corona, the profile of the jet magnetic field and the external radiation. We confirm that most of the dissipation, if producing the γ-ray flux we see, must occur at hundreds of Schwarzschild radii from the black hole, to avoid the γ−γ→e± process, and the consequent re-emission by the produced pairs. The magnetic energy density of a ‘canonical’ jet almost never dominates the radiative cooling of the emitting electrons, and consequently the inverse Compton flux almost always dominates the bolometric output. This is more so for large black hole masses. Dissipation taking place beyond the broad-line region is particularly interesting, since it accounts in a simple way for the largest inverse Compton to synchrotron flux ratios accompanied by an extremely hard X-ray spectrum. Furthermore, it makes the high-power blazars at high redshift useful tools to study the optical to UV cosmic backgrounds.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
On the magnetization of BL Lac jets Tavecchio, F; Ghisellini, G
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
03/2016, Volume:
456, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The current paradigm foresees that relativistic jets are launched as magnetically dominated flows, whose magnetic power is progressively converted to kinetic power of the matter of the jet, until ...equipartition is reached. Therefore, at the end of the acceleration phase, the jet should still carry a substantial fraction (≈half) of its power in the form of a Poynting flux. It has been also argued that, in these conditions, the best candidate particle acceleration mechanism is efficient reconnection of magnetic field lines, for which it is predicted that magnetic field and accelerated relativistic electron energy densities are in equipartition. Through the modelling of the jet non-thermal emission, we explore if equipartition is indeed possible in BL Lac objects, i.e. low-power blazars with weak or absent broad emission lines. We find that one-zone models (for which only one region is involved in the production of the radiation we observe) the particle energy density is largely dominating (by 1–2 orders of magnitude) over the magnetic one. As a consequence, the jet kinetic power largely exceeds the magnetic power. Instead, if the jet is structured (i.e. made by a fast spine surrounded by a slower layer), the amplification of the inverse Compton emission due to the radiative interplay between the two components allows us to reproduce the emission in equipartition conditions.
Abstract The origin of the astrophysical high-energy neutrinos discovered by IceCube is currently a major mystery. The recent detection of IceCube-170922A, an ∼300 TeV neutrino potentially correlated ...with the flaring γ-ray source TXS 0506+056, directs attention towards BL Lac objects (BL Lacs), the subclass of blazars with weak emission lines. While high-energy neutrinos can be produced via photohadronic interactions between protons accelerated in their jets and ambient low-energy photons, the density of the latter in such objects had generally been thought to be too low for efficient neutrino emission. Here we consider the role of radiatively inefficient accretion flows (RIAFs), which can plausibly exist in the nuclei of BL Lacs, as the source of target photons for neutrino production. Based on simple model prescriptions for the spectra of RIAFs at different accretion rates, we find that they can be sufficiently intense to allow appreciable neutrino emission for the class of low-synchrotron-peak BL Lacs such as TXS 0506+056. In contrast, for high-synchrotron-peak BL Lacs, including Mkn 421 and Mkn 501, the contribution of RIAFs is subdominant and their neutrino production efficiency can remain low, consistent with their non-detection by IceCube to date.
Theoretical models for the production of relativistic jets from active galactic nuclei predict that jet power arises from the spin and mass of the central supermassive black hole, as well as from the ...magnetic field near the event horizon. The physical mechanism underlying the contribution from the magnetic field is the torque exerted on the rotating black hole by the field amplified by the accreting material. If the squared magnetic field is proportional to the accretion rate, then there will be a correlation between jet power and accretion luminosity. There is evidence for such a correlation, but inadequate knowledge of the accretion luminosity of the limited and inhomogeneous samples used prevented a firm conclusion. Here we report an analysis of archival observations of a sample of blazars (quasars whose jets point towards Earth) that overcomes previous limitations. We find a clear correlation between jet power, as measured through the γ-ray luminosity, and accretion luminosity, as measured by the broad emission lines, with the jet power dominating the disk luminosity, in agreement with numerical simulations. This implies that the magnetic field threading the black hole horizon reaches the maximum value sustainable by the accreting matter.
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DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
We study the BL Lac objects detected in the 1-year all-sky survey of the Fermi satellite, with an energy spectral slope αγ in the 0.1-100 GeV band greater than 1.2. In the αγ versus γ-ray luminosity ...plane, these BL Lacs occupy the region populated by flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs). Studying the properties of their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and of their emitting lines, we find that several of these BL Lacs have an SED similar to FSRQs and that they do have broad lines of large equivalent width (EW), and should be reclassified as FSRQs even adopting the current phenomenological definition (i.e. EW of the emitting line greater than 5 Å). In other cases, even if the EW is small, the emitting lines can be as luminous as in quasars, and again their SED is similar to the SED of FSRQs. Sources classified as BL Lacs with an SED appearing as intermediate between BL Lacs and FSRQs also have relatively weak broad emission lines and small EW, and can be considered as transition sources. These properties are confirmed also by model fitting that allows us to derive the relevant intrinsic jet parameters and the jet power. This study leads us to propose a physical distinction between the two classes of blazars, based on the luminosity of the broad-line region measured in Eddington units. The dividing line is of the order of L
BLR/L
Edd∼ 5 × 10−4, in good agreement with the idea that the presence of strong emitting lines is related to a transition in the accretion regime, becoming radiatively inefficient below a disc luminosity of the order of 1 per cent of the Eddington one.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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