Determining the Location of the GeV Emission in Blazars Using Fermi Variability Data

Details Determining the Location of the GeV Emission in Blazars Using Fermi Variability Data Determining the Location of the GeV Emission in Blazars Using Fermi Variability Data

Sep 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011head...12.0719d&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #12, #7.19

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The dominant location of high-energy emission in extragalactic relativistic jets is a matter of active debate. Here we present a clear diagnostic tool for using variability data from Fermi to test whether the GeV blazar emission is located within the sub-pc broad emission line region. If the blazar emission takes place inside the broad line region (BLR), the GeV emission detected by Fermi results from inverse Compton scattering of BLR photons. We show that, because this scattering takes place at the onset of the Klein-Nishina regime, the electron cooling time becomes practically energy-independent and the variation of high-energy emission is expected to be achromatic. Conversely, if the blazar emission takes places outside of the BLR, the GeV emission either results from inverse Compton scattering of IR photons from the molecular torus. In this scenario, the scattering takes place within the Thomson regime, and the subsequent electron cooling time and high-energy variation is heavily energy dependent. Using time-dependent numerical simulations of blazar variability we model the observed Fermi variability at different Fermi energies, thus allowing us to uniquely determine whether the blazar emission site is located with in the BLR.

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