Browsing by Author "Fossati, Giovanni"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Collective Evidence for Inverse Compton Emission from External Photons in High-Power Blazars
    (The American Astronomical Society, 2012) Meyer, Eileen T.; Fossati, Giovanni; Georganopoulos, Markos; Lister, Matthew L.
    We present the first collective evidence that Fermi-detected jets of high kinetic power (L kin) are dominated by inverse Compton emission from upscattered external photons. Using a sample with a broad range in orientation angle, including radio galaxies and blazars, we find that very high power sources (L kin > 1045.5 erg s–1) show a significant increase in the ratio of inverse Compton to synchrotron power (Compton dominance) with decreasing orientation angle, as measured by the radio core dominance and confirmed by the distribution of superluminal speeds. This increase is consistent with beaming expectations for external Compton (EC) emission, but not for synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) emission. For the lowest power jets (L kin < 1043.5 erg s–1), no trend between Compton and radio core dominance is found, consistent with SSC. Importantly, the EC trend is not seen for moderately high power flat spectrum radio quasars with strong external photon fields. Coupled with the evidence that jet power is linked to the jet speed, this finding suggests that external photon fields become the dominant source of seed photons in the jet comoving frame only for the faster and therefore more powerful jets.
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    SMARTS OPTICAL AND INFRARED MONITORING OF 12 GAMMA-RAY BRIGHT BLAZARS
    (2012) Bonning, Erin; Urry, C. Megan; Bailyn, Charles; Buxton, Michelle; Chatterjee, Ritaban; Coppi, Paolo; Fossati, Giovanni; Isler, Jedidah; Maraschi, Laura; The American Astronomical Society
    We present multiwavelength data for 12 blazars observed from 2008 to 2010 as part of an ongoing optical–infrared photometric monitoring project. Sources were selected to be bright, southern (δ < 20◦) blazars observed by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. Light curves are presented for the 12 blazars in BVRJK at near-daily cadence. We find that optical and infrared fluxes are well correlated in all sources. Gamma-ray bright flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) in our sample have optical/infrared emission correlated with gamma-rays consistent with inverse Compton-scattering models. In FSRQs, variability amplitude increases toward IR wavelengths, consistent with the presence of a thermal accretion disk varying on significantly longer timescales than the jet. In BL Lac objects, variability is mainly constant, or increases toward shorter wavelength. FSRQs have redder optical–infrared colors when they are brighter,whileBLLac objects showno such trend. Several objects showcomplicated color–magnitude behavior: AO 0235+164 appears in two different states depending on its gamma-ray intensity. OJ 287 and 3C 279 show some hysteresis tracks in their color–magnitude diagrams. Individual flares may be achromatic or otherwise depart from the trend, suggesting different jet components becoming important at different times. We present a time-dependent spectral energy distribution of the bright FSRQ 3C 454.3 during its 2009 December flare, which is well fit by an external Compton model in the bright state, although day-to-day changes pose challenges to a simple one-zone model. All data from the SMARTS monitoring program are publicly available on our Web site.
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    The Blazar Envelope and the Relativistic Jet Dichotomy: Unification of Radio-Loud AGN
    (2013-07-24) Meyer, Eileen; Fossati, Giovanni; Hartigan, Patrick M.; Cox, Dennis D.
    Motivated by recent successes in linking the kinetic power of relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) to the low-frequency, isotropic lobe emission, I have re-examined the blazar and radio-loud AGN unification scheme through careful analysis of the four parameters we believe to be fundamental in producing a particular jet spectral energy distribution (SED): the kinetic power, accretion power, accretion mode, and orientation. In particular, I have compiled a multi-wavelength database for hundreds of jet SEDs in order to characterize the jet spectrum by the synchrotron peak output, and have conducted an analysis of the steep lobe emission in blazars in order to determine the intrinsic jet power. This study of the link between power and isotropic emission is likely to have a wider applicability to other types or relativistic jet phenomena, such as microquasars. Based on a well-characterized sample of over 200 sources, I suggest a new unification scheme for radio-loud AGN (Meyer et al. 2011) which compliments evidence that a transition in jet power at a few percent of the Eddington luminosity produces two types of relativistic jet (Ghisellini, et al., 2009). The `broken power sequence' addresses a series of recent findings severely at odds with the previous unification scheme. This scheme makes many testable predictions which will can be addressed with a larger body of data, including a way to determine whether the coupling between accretion and jet power is the currently presumed one-to-one correspondence, or whether accretion power forms an upper bound, as very recent observations suggest (Fernandes et al. 2011). This work is a first step toward a unified understanding of the relativistic jets found in radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN) and their connection to accretion onto the super-massive black holes from which they emanate.
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    The effects of intrinsic spectral curvature and flux limits on the measured evolutionary behavior of BL Lacertæ objects
    (2008) Meyer, Eileen T.; Fossati, Giovanni
    The effects of modeling the intrinsic curvature of the spectral energy distributions of BL Lacertae objects in the soft x-ray on the V/V M evolutionary statistic were studied. It was found that the power law approximations in the soft x-ray could cause a significant bias in V/V M towards values supporting either negative or positive evolution for BL Lacs. The effects of such a bias on the Sedentary Survey, a large sample of 150 BL Lacertae objects, were found to be negligible on average though individual effects were appreciable. The luminosity function and parametric values of evolution for pure luminosity and pure density evolution were computed for the Sedentary Sample.
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    Time-dependent simulations of emission from the FSRQ PKS 1510−089: multiwavelength variability of external Compton and synchrotron self-Compton models
    (Royal Astronomical Society, 2012) Chen, Xuhui; Fossati, Giovanni; Bottcher, Markus; Liang, Edison
    We present results of modelling the broad-band spectral energy distribution (SED) and multiwavelength variability of the bright flat spectrum radio quasars PKS 1510−089 with our time-dependent multizone Monte Carlo/Fokker–Planck code. As the primary source of seed photons for inverse Compton scattering, we consider radiation from the broad-line region (BLR), from the hot dust of the molecular torus and the local synchrotron radiation [synchrotron self-Compton (SSC)]. We evaluate the viability of different Compton models by comparing simulated multiwavelength light curves and SEDs with one of the best observed flares by PKS 1510−089, in 2009 March. The time dependence of our code and its correct handling of light travel time effects allow us to fully take into account the effect of the finite size of the active region, and in turn to fully exploit the information carried by time-resolved observed SEDs that are becoming increasingly available since the launch of Fermi. We confirm that the spectrum adopted for the external radiation field has an important impact on the modelling of the SED, in particular for the lower energy end of the Compton component which is observed in the X-ray band, which in turn is one of the most critical bands to assess the differences between external Compton and SSC emission. In the context of the scenario presented in this paper, where the flaring is caused by the increase of the number of relativistic electrons ascribed to the effect of the interaction of a portion of the jet (blob) with a shock, we cannot firmly discriminate the three main scenarios for γ -ray emission. However, results show clearly the differences produced by a more realistic treatment of the emitting source in the shape of SEDs and their time variability over relevant, observable time-scales, and demonstrate the crucial importance of time-dependent multizone models to advance our understanding of the physics of these sources, by taking full advantage of the wealth of information offered by the high-quality data of current multiwavelength Campaigns.
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    Understanding the Nature of Blazars High Energy Emission with Time Dependent Multi-zone Modeling
    (2012-09-05) Chen, Xuhui; Fossati, Giovanni; Liang, Edison P.; Raphael, Robert M.
    In this thesis we present a time-dependent multi-zone radiative transfer code and its applications to study the multiwavelength emission of blazars. The multiwavelength variability of blazars is widely believed to be a direct manifestation of the formation and propagation of relativistic jets, and hence the related physics of the black hole - accretion disk - jet system. However, the understanding of these variability demands highly sophisticated theoretical analysis and numerical simulations. Especially, the inclusion of the light travel time effects(LTTEs) in these calculations has long been realized important, but very difficult. The code we use couples Fokker-Planck and Monte Carlo methods, in a 2 dimensional (cylindrical) geometry. For the first time all the LTTEs are fully considered, along with a proper, full, self-consistent treatment of Compton cooling, which depends on the LTTEs. Using this code, we studied a set of physical processes that are relevant to the variability of blazars, including electron injection and escape, radiative cooling, and stochastic particle acceleration. Our comparison of the observational data and the simulation results revealed that a combination of all those processes is needed to reproduce the observed behaviors of the emission of blue blazars. The simulation favors that the high energy emission at quiet and flare stages comes from the same location. We have further modeled red blazars PKS 1510-089. External radiation, which comes from the broad line region (BLR) or infrared torus, is included in the model. The results confirm that external Compton model can adequately describe the emission from red blazars. The emission from BLR is favored as the source of Inverse Compton seed photons, compared to synchrotron and IR torus radiation.