Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21740801w&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #408.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The blazar 3C 454.3 has been in an historically active state for the last several years. Since the launch of the Fermi Gamma ray Space Telescope, the blazar has undergone several flaring episodes, becoming the brightest persistent source in the gamma ray sky in December 2009. We have carried out an optical and near-IR monitoring campaign on 3C 454.3, observing the source with a near-nightly cadence since August 2008. We correlate the optical and near-IR fluxes with the Fermi gamma-ray data as well as optical, UV, and X-ray fluxes from Swift Target of Opportunity observations during exceptionally high flux states. Since optical and IR fluxes are well-correlated with the gamma-rays, we can extrapolate to zero gamma-ray flux, revealing optical/IR magnitudes which can be associated with the underlying thermal accretion disk. This allows the thermal disk component to be disentangled from the jet synchtrotron component, allowing the variability properties of the jet to be more precisely studied. We present the results of our multiwavelength campaign, comparing the August 2008 flare with the November-December 2009 flare. We find a strong change in variability characteristics which will be discussed in terms of jet emission models.
Bailyn Charles
Bonning Erin Wells
Buxton Michelle M.
Chatterjee Rajdeep
Coppi Paolo
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