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Title: RoboPol: first season rotations of optical polarization plane in blazars

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [5];  [7];  [8];  [6];  [9];  [7];  [8];  [10];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8] more »;  [8];  [2];  [5];  [7];  [7];  [10];  [5];  [2];  [6] « less
  1. Univ. of Crete, Heraklion (Greece). Inst. for Plasma Physics, Dept. of Physics; St. Petersburg State Univ., St. Petersburg (Russia). Astronomical Inst.
  2. Univ. of Crete, Heraklion (Greece). Inst. for Plasma Physics, Dept. of Physics; Foundation for Research and Technology (Forth), Heraklion (Greece). Inst. of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL)
  3. Max Planck Inst. for Radio Astronomy, Bonn (Germany)
  4. Univ. of Crete, Heraklion (Greece). Inst. for Plasma Physics, Dept. of Physics
  5. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics
  6. Max Planck Inst. for Radio Astronomy, Bonn (Germany)
  7. Inter-Univ. Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Ganeshkhind (India)
  8. Nicolaus Copernicus Univ., Torun (Poland). Centre for Astronomy
  9. Aalto Univ., Metsahovi, (Finland). Metsahovi Radio Observatory
  10. Foundation for Research and Technology (Forth), Heraklion (Greece). Inst. of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL); Univ. of Crete, Heraklion (Greece). Inst. for Plasma Physics, Dept. of Physics
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Here, we present first results on polarization swings in optical emission of blazars obtained by RoboPol, a monitoring programme of an unbiased sample of gamma-ray bright blazars specially designed for effective detection of such events. A possible connection of polarization swing events with periods of high activity in gamma-rays is investigated using the data set obtained during the first season of operation. It was found that the brightest gamma-ray flares tend to be located closer in time to rotation events, which may be an indication of two separate mechanisms responsible for the rotations. Blazars with detected rotations during non-rotating periods have significantly larger amplitude and faster variations of polarization angle than blazars without rotations. Our simulations show that the full set of observed rotations is not a likely outcome (probability ≤1.5 × 10-2) of a random walk of the polarization vector simulated by a multicell model. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely (~5 × 10-5) that none of our rotations is physically connected with an increase in gamma-ray activity.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); European Commission (EC); National Science Foundation (NSF); Polish National Science Centre (NCN)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515; NNX11A043G; AST-1109911; NNX14AQ07H; 2011/01/B/ST9/04618; PCIG-GA-2011-293531
OSTI ID:
1354926
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 453, Issue 2; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 63 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (34)

Insights into the emission of the blazar 1ES 1011+496 through unprecedented broadband observations during 2011 and 2012 journal June 2016
Polarization angle swings in blazars: The case of 3C 279 journal April 2016
The F-GAMMA programme: multi-frequency study of active galactic nuclei in the Fermi era : Programme description and the first 2.5 years of monitoring⋆ journal November 2016
Very high energy outburst of Markarian 501 in May 2009 journal October 2016
Optical polarization of high-energy BL Lacertae objects journal December 2016
Detection of the blazar S4 0954+65 at very-high-energy with the MAGIC telescopes during an exceptionally high optical state journal September 2018
A complete sample of LSP blazars fully described in γ -rays: New γ -ray detections and associations with Fermi -LAT journal August 2018
F-GAMMA: Multi-frequency radio monitoring of Fermi blazars : The 2.64 to 43 GHz Effelsberg light curves from 2007–2015⋆ journal June 2019
The magnetic field structure in CTA 102 from high-resolution mm-VLBI observations during the flaring state in 2016–2017 journal February 2019
Multiwavelength photometric and spectropolarimetric analysis of the FSRQ 3C 279 journal June 2018
Probing the unidentified Fermi blazar-like population using optical polarization and machine learning journal April 2019
RoboPol: a four-channel optical imaging polarimeter journal February 2019
Multiwavelength Picture of the Blazar S5 0716+714 during Its Brightest Outburst journal November 2016
Blazar Optical Polarimetry: Current Progress in Observations and Theories journal October 2019
Systematic Study of Gamma-Ray-Bright Blazars with Optical Polarization and Gamma-Ray Variability journal December 2016
Reversals in the Direction of Polarization Rotation in OJ 287 journal July 2018
The Polarization Behavior of Relativistic Synchrotron Jets journal September 2018
The Polarization Behavior of Relativistic Synchrotron Self-Compton Jets journal November 2019
Multiwavelength picture of the blazar S5 0716+714 during its brightest outburst text January 2016
Very high energy outburst of Markarian 501 in May 2009 text January 2016
Insights into the emission of the blazar 1ES 1011+496 through unprecedented broadband observations during 2011 and 2012 text January 2016
Multiwavelength Picture of the Blazar S5 0716+714 during Its Brightest Outburst text January 2016
Detection of the blazar S4 0954+65 at very-high-energy with the MAGIC telescopes during an exceptionally high optical state text January 2018
Polarization angle swings in blazars: The case of 3C 279 text January 2016
The F-GAMMA program: Multi-frequency study of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Fermi era. Program description and the first 2.5 years of monitoring text January 2016
Optical polarization of high-energy BL Lac objects text January 2016
Systematic Study of Gamma-ray bright Blazars with Optical Polarization and Gamma-ray Variability text January 2016
Multiwavelength picture of the blazar S5 0716+714 during its brightest outburst text January 2017
Multiwavelength Photometric and Spectropolarimetric Analysis of the FSRQ 3C 279 text January 2018
The magnetic field structure in CTA 102 from high resolution mm-VLBI observations during the flaring state in 2016-2017 text January 2018
F-GAMMA: Multi-frequency radio monitoring of Fermi blazars. The 2.64 to 43 GHz Effelsberg light curves from 2007-2015 text January 2019
RoboPol: A four-channel optical imaging polarimeter text January 2019
Probing the unidentified Fermi blazar-like population using optical polarization and machine learning text January 2019
The Polarization Behavior of Relativistic Synchrotron Self-Compton Jets text January 2019

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
polarization
galaxies: active
galaxies: jets
galaxies: nuclei