Abstract
Spinning black holes in the centres of galaxies can release powerful magnetised jets. When the jets are observed at angles of less than a few degrees to the line-of-sight, they are called ...blazars, showing variable non-thermal emission across the electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays. It is commonly believed that shock waves are responsible for this dissipation of jet energy. Here we show that gamma-ray observations of the blazar 3C 279 with the space-borne telescope Fermi-LAT reveal a characteristic peak-in-peak variability pattern on time scales of minutes expected if the particle acceleration is instead due to relativistic magnetic reconnection. The absence of gamma-ray pair attenuation shows that particle acceleration takes place at a distance of ten thousand gravitational radii from the black hole where the fluid dynamical kink instability drives plasma turbulence.
The IceCube Collaboration has published four years of data and the observed neutrino flux is significantly in excess of the expected atmospheric background. Due to the steeply falling atmospheric ...background spectrum, events at the highest energies are most likely extraterrestrial. In our previous approach we have studied blazars as the possible origin of the High-Energy Starting Events (HESE) neutrino events at PeV energies. In this work we extend our study to include all HESE neutrinos (which does not include IC 170922A) at or above a reconstructed energy of 100 TeV, but below 1 PeV. We study the X-ray and γ-ray data of all (∼200) 3LAC blazars that are positionally consistent with the neutrino events above 100 TeV to determine the maximum neutrino flux from these sources. This larger sample allows us to better constrain the scaling factor between the observed and maximum number of neutrino events. We find that when we consider a realistic neutrino spectrum and other factors, the number of neutrinos is in good agreement with the detected number of IceCube HESE events. We also show that there is no direct correlation between Fermi/LAT γ-ray flux and the IceCube neutrino flux and that the expected number of neutrinos is consistent with the non-detection of individual bright blazars.
Context.
The origin of the
γ
-ray emission of the blazar
Mrk 421
is still a matter of debate.
Aims.
We used 5.5 years of unbiased observing campaign data, obtained using the FACT telescope and the
...Fermi
-LAT detector at TeV and GeV energies, the longest and densest so far, together with contemporaneous multi-wavelength observations, to characterise the variability of
Mrk 421
and to constrain the underlying physical mechanisms.
Methods.
We studied and correlated light curves obtained by ten different instruments and found two significant results.
Results.
The TeV and X-ray light curves are very well correlated with a lag of < 0.6 days. The GeV and radio (15 Ghz band) light curves are widely and strongly correlated. Variations of the GeV light curve lead those in the radio.
Conclusions.
Lepto-hadronic and purely hadronic models in the frame of shock acceleration predict proton acceleration or cooling timescales that are ruled out by the short variability timescales and delays observed in Mrk 421. Instead the observations match the predictions of leptonic models.
The astrophysical sources of the extraterrestrial, very high-energy neutrinos detected by the IceCube collaboration remain to be identified. Gamma-ray (γ-ray) blazars have been predicted to yield a ...cumulative neutrino signal exceeding the atmospheric background above energies of 100 TeV, assuming that both the neutrinos and the γ-ray photons are produced by accelerated protons in relativistic jets. As the background spectrum falls steeply with increasing energy, the individual events with the clearest signature of being of extraterrestrial origin are those at petaelectronvolt energies. Inside the large positional-uncertainty fields of the first two petaelectronvolt neutrinos detected by IceCube, the integrated emission of the blazar population has a sufficiently high electromagnetic flux to explain the detected IceCube events, but fluences of individual objects are too low to make an unambiguous source association. Here, we report that a major outburst of the blazar PKS B1424-418 occurred in temporal and positional coincidence with a third petaelectronvolt-energy neutrino event (HESE-35) detected by IceCube. On the basis of an analysis of the full sample of γ-ray blazars in the HESE-35 field, we show that the long-term average γ-ray emission of blazars as a class is in agreement with both the measured all-sky flux of petaelectronvolt neutrinos and the spectral slope of the IceCube signal. The outburst of PKS B1424-418 provides an energy output high enough to explain the observed petaelectronvolt event, suggestive of a direct physical association.
Blazar jets are extreme environments, in which relativistic proton interactions with an ultraviolet photon field could give rise to photopion production. High-confidence associations of individual ...high-energy neutrinos with blazar flares could be achieved via spatially and temporally coincident detections. In 2017, the track-like, extremely high-energy neutrino event IC 170922A was found to coincide with increased γ-ray emission from the blazar TXS 0506+056, leading to the identification of the most promising neutrino point-source candidate so far. We calculate the expected number of neutrino events that can be detected with IceCube, based on a broadband parameterization of bright short-term blazar flares that were observed in the first 6.5 yr of Fermi/Large Area Telescope observations. We find that the integrated keV-to-GeV fluence of most individual blazar flares is far too small to yield a substantial Poisson probability for the detection of one or more neutrinos with IceCube. We show that the sample of potentially detectable high-energy neutrinos from individual blazar flares is rather small. We further show that the blazars 3C 279 and PKS 1510−089 dominate the all-sky neutrino prediction from bright and short-term blazar flares. In the end, we discuss strategies to search for more significant associations in future data unblindings of IceCube and KM3NeT.
Aims. The nearby TeV blazar 1ES 1959+650 (z = 0.047) was reported to be in flaring state during June–July 2016 by Fermi-LAT, FACT, MAGIC and VERITAS collaborations. We studied the spectral energy ...distributions (SEDs) in different states of the flare during MJD 57530–57589 using simultaneous multiwaveband data with the aim of understanding the possible broadband emission scenario during the flare. Methods. The UV-optical and X-ray data from UVOT and XRT respectively on board Swift and high energy γ-ray data from Fermi-LAT were used to generate multiwaveband lightcurves as well as to obtain high flux states and quiescent state SEDs. The correlation and lag between different energy bands was quantified using discrete correlation function. The synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model was used to reproduce the observed SEDs during flaring and quiescent states of the source. Results. A good correlation is seen between X-ray and high energy γ-ray fluxes. The spectral hardening with increase in the flux is seen in X-ray band. The power law index vs. flux plot in γ-ray band indicates the different emission regions for 0.1–3 GeV and 3–300 GeV energy photons. Two zone SSC model satisfactorily fits the observed broadband SEDs. The inner zone is mainly responsible for producing synchrotron peak and high energy γ-ray part of the SED in all states. The second zone is mainly required to produce less variable optical-UV and low energy γ-ray emission. Conclusions. Conventional single zone SSC model does not satisfactorily explain broadband emission during observation period considered. There is an indication of two emission zones in the jet which are responsible for producing broadband emission from optical to high energy γ-rays.
Abstract
The X-ray variability of the BL Lacertae source Mrk 501 was studied during 11.5 yr of monitoring with Swift. Here, we report the results of this study pertaining to the epoch of 2014 ...March–October, when our target showed the most powerful and long-lasting X-ray flaring activity. This epoch was characterized by X-ray flares varying in amplitude by factors of 2–5 on time-scales of a few weeks or shorter. We detected 35 instances of the intraday variability, sometimes occurring within the 1 ks observational runs. The X-ray flux was generally correlated with the TeV flux, while the 0.3–300 GeV and optical-UV fluxes did not show a significant correlation. Some notable incidences of more complicated variability patterns could also be recognized, indicating that the high-energy emission in Mrk 501 arose from an emission region more complex than a single zone. The best fits of the 0.3–10 keV spectra were mainly obtained using the logparabola model. Strong spectral variability was detected, affecting the slope but not the curvature of the spectrum. In strong flares, the spectral index became harder than 1.70. The spectral evolution was characterized by a harder-when-brighter behaviour, shifting the peak of the spectral energy distribution by about 20 keV that happens rarely in blazars.
The IceCube Collaboration has announced the discovery of a neutrino flux in excess of the atmospheric background. Owing to the steeply falling atmospheric background spectrum, events at PeV energies ...most likely have an extraterrestrial origin. We present the multiwavelength properties of the six radio-brightest blazars that are positionally coincident with these events using contemporaneous data of the TANAMI blazar sample, including high-resolution images and spectral energy distributions. Assuming the X-ray to γ-ray emission originates in the photoproduction of pions by accelerated protons, the integrated predicted neutrino luminosity of these sources is high enough to explain the two detected PeV events.
The flat-spectrum radio quasar CTA 102 experienced a prolonged state of enhanced activity across the entire observed electromagnetic spectrum during 2016-2017, most pronounced during a major outburst ...between 2016 December and 2017 May. Fermi-LAT observed a flux of (2.2 0.2) × 10−5 photons cm−2 s−1 at energies above 100 MeV on 2017 April 19 during a single orbit. We report here the detection of significant (4.7 ) flux variations down to timescales of ∼5 minutes during this orbit. The measured variability timescale is much shorter than the light-travel time across the central black hole (∼70 minutes) indicating a very compact emission region within the jet, similar to that seen in IC 310, Mrk 501, or PKS 1222+21 from MAGIC observations. This short-timescale variability is unexpected since the γ-ray spectrum shows no sign of attenuation due to pair creation in interactions with photons from the broad emission line region, and therefore must be assumed to originate far from the black hole. The observed fast variability could either indicate the dissipation of magnetic islands or protons in a collimated beam from the base of the jet encountering the turbulent plasma at the end of the magnetic nozzle.
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