Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21714264m&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #142.64; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
1
Scientific paper
The author is developing a model in which much of the optical and high-energy radiation in a blazar is emitted near the 43 GHz core of the jet as seen in VLBA images, parsecs from the central engine. The main physical features are a turbulent ambient jet plasma that passes through either standing or moving shock waves in the jet. The model allows for short time-scales of optical and gamma-ray variability by restricting the highest-energy electrons radiating at these frequencies to a small fraction of the turbulent cells, perhaps those with a particular orientation of the magnetic field relative to the shock front. Because of this, the filling factor at high frequencies is relatively low, while that of the electrons radiating below about 10 THz is near unity. Such a model is consistent with the following observational trends: (1) red-noise power spectra of flux variations in blazars, (2) shorter time-scales of variability of flux and polarization at higher frequencies, (3) mean polarization levels as well as fractional deviations from the mean that are higher at optical than at lower frequencies, (4) apparent rotations in polarization position angle, and (5) breaks in the synchrotron spectrum by more than the radiative loss value of 0.5. The dependence of items 2-4 on frequency is directly related to the change in spectral index beyond the break, according to the model.
The model is being expanded to include high-energy radiation from inverse Compton scattering. The numerical calculation takes into account the light-travel times from cell to cell and from each cell to the observer. The presentation will include preliminary results of this added feature.
This research is supported in part by NASA through Fermi grants NNX08AV65G and NNX10AO59G, and by NSF grant AST-0907893.
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