skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Fermi Large Area Telescope And Multi-Wavelength Observations Of The Flaring Activity Of PKS 1510-089 Between 2008 September And 2009 June

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal
 [1]
  1. Naval Research Lab. (NRL), Washington, DC (United States); et al.

We report on the multi-wavelength observations of PKS 1510-089 (a flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) at z = 0.361) during its high activity period between 2008 September and 2009 June. During this 11 month period, the source was characterized by a complex variability at optical, UV, and γ-ray bands, on timescales down to 6-12 hr. The brightest γ-ray isotropic luminosity, recorded on 2009 March 26, was sime2 × 1048 erg s–1. The spectrum in the Fermi Large Area Telescope energy range shows a mild curvature described well by a log-parabolic law, and can be understood as due to the Klein-Nishina effect. The γ-ray flux has a complex correlation with the other wavelengths. There is no correlation at all with the X-ray band, a weak correlation with the UV, and a significant correlation with the optical flux. The γ-ray flux seems to lead the optical one by about 13 days. From the UV photometry, we estimated a black hole mass of sime5.4 × 108 M ⊙ and an accretion rate of sime0.5 M ⊙ yr–1. Although the power in the thermal and non-thermal outputs is smaller compared to the very luminous and distant FSRQs, PKS 1510-089 exhibits a quite large Compton dominance and a prominent big blue bump (BBB) as observed in the most powerful γ-ray quasars. The BBB was still prominent during the historical maximum optical state in 2009 May, but the optical/UV spectral index was softer than in the quiescent state. This seems to indicate that the BBB was not completely dominated by the synchrotron emission during the highest optical state. We model the broadband spectrum assuming a leptonic scenario in which the inverse Compton emission is dominated by the scattering of soft photons produced externally to the jet. The resulting model-dependent jet energetic content is compatible with a scenario in which the jet is powered by the accretion disk, with a total efficiency within the Kerr black hole limit.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Contributing Organization:
Fermi LAT Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1357525
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 721, Issue 2; ISSN 0004-637X
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 90 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (59)

Early Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope Observations of the Quasar 3c 454.3 journal June 2009
FERMI /LARGE AREA TELESCOPE DISCOVERY OF GAMMA-RAY EMISSION FROM THE FLAT-SPECTRUM RADIO QUASAR PKS 1454–354 journal May 2009
FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE FIRST SOURCE CATALOG journal May 2010
PKS 1502+106: A NEW AND DISTANT GAMMA-RAY BLAZAR IN OUTBURST DISCOVERED BY THE FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE journal January 2010
SPECTRAL PROPERTIES OF BRIGHT FERMI -DETECTED BLAZARS IN THE GAMMA-RAY BAND journal January 2010
The Swift BAT X‐Ray Survey. III. X‐Ray Spectra and Statistical Properties journal January 2008
GALAXY CLUSTERS IN THE SWIFT /BURST ALERT TELESCOPE ERA: HARD X-RAYS IN THE INTRACLUSTER MEDIUM journal December 2008
THE LARGE AREA TELESCOPE ON THE FERMI GAMMA-RAY SPACE TELESCOPE MISSION journal May 2009
The Radius‐Luminosity Relationship for Active Galactic Nuclei: The Effect of Host‐Galaxy Starlight on Luminosity Measurements journal June 2006
The Swift X-Ray Telescope journal October 2005
The relationship between infrared, optical, and ultraviolet extinction journal October 1989
Parameter estimation in astronomy through application of the likelihood ratio journal March 1979
AGILE detection of a rapid γ -ray flare from the blazar PKS 1510-089 during the GASP-WEBT monitoring journal October 2009
Transformation Properties of External Radiation Fields, Energy‐Loss Rates and Scattered Spectra, and a Model for Blazar Variability journal August 2002
The Swift Gamma‐Ray Burst Mission journal August 2004
Bulk acceleration in relativistic jets and the spectral properties of blazars journal May 1989
General physical properties of bright Fermi blazars: Properties of bright Fermi blazars journal November 2009
Jet and accretion power in the most powerful Fermi blazars journal November 2009
Swift and infra-red observations of the blazar 3C 454.3 during the giant X-ray flare of May 2005 journal September 2006
The Third EGRET Catalog of High‐Energy Gamma‐Ray Sources journal July 1999
PKS 1510−089: A Head‐on View of a Relativistic Jet journal December 2002
Doppler factors, Lorentz factors and viewing angles for quasars, BL Lacertae objects and radio galaxies journal November 2008
Physics of Compact Nonthermal Sources. Theory of Radiation Processes journal March 1974
The Relationship between Luminosity and Broad‐Line Region Size in Active Galactic Nuclei journal August 2005
Multiwavelength Observations of the Powerful Gamma‐Ray Quasar PKS 1510−089: Clues on the Jet Composition journal January 2008
Correlation between the TeV and X-ray emission in high-energy peaked BL Lac objects journal March 2005
Disc accretion in active galactic nuclei journal August 2008
FIVE-YEAR WILKINSON MICROWAVE ANISOTROPY PROBE OBSERVATIONS: COSMOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION journal February 2009
The Relation Between agn Gamma-Ray Emission and Parsec-Scale Radio jets journal April 2009
Active extragalactic sources - Nearly simultaneous observations from 20 centimeters to 1400 A journal September 1986
A CONNECTION BETWEEN APPARENT VLBA JET SPEEDS AND INITIAL ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS DETECTIONS MADE BY THE FERMI GAMMA-RAY OBSERVATORY journal April 2009
Mojave: Monitoring of jets in Active Galactic Nuclei with vlba Experiments. v. Multi-Epoch vlba Images journal February 2009
Mojave: Monitoring of jets in Active Galactic Nuclei with vlba Experiments. vi. Kinematics Analysis of a Complete Sample of Blazar jets journal November 2009
The Hubble Space Telescope Quasar Absorption Line Key Project. 10: Galactic H I 21 centimeter emission toward 143 quasars and active Galactic nuclei journal March 1995
Simultaneous Soft X-Ray and GeV Gamma-Ray Observations of BL Lacertae Object AO 0235+164 journal March 1996
A jet model for the gamma-ray emitting blazar 3C 279 journal September 1992
Probing the Inner jet of the Quasar pks 1510–089 with Multi-Waveband Monitoring During Strong Gamma-Ray Activity journal February 2010
Log-parabolic spectra and particle acceleration in the BL Lac object Mkn 421: Spectral analysis of the complete BeppoSAX wide band X-ray data set journal December 2003
The EGRET detection of quasar 1633 + 382 journal June 1993
The Likelihood Analysis of EGRET Data journal April 1996
Does the Blazar Gamma‐Ray Spectrum Harden with Increasing Flux? Analysis of 9 Years of EGRET Data journal March 2007
Black Hole Mass Estimates of Radio‐selected Quasars journal September 2002
XMM-Newton spectroscopy of high-redshift quasars journal November 2005
Photometric calibration of the Swift ultraviolet/optical telescope: Photometric calibration of the Swift UVOT journal December 2007
AGILE detection of intense gamma-ray emission from the blazar PKS 1510-089 journal October 2008
BVR photometry of comparison stars in selected blazar fields : II. Photometric sequences for 9 quasars journal June 1998
Overview of the GLAST Mission and Opportunities conference January 2007
Maps of Dust Infrared Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Foregrounds journal June 1998
On the Nature of MeV Blazars journal September 2002
Comptonization of diffuse ambient radiation by a relativistic jet: The source of gamma rays from blazars? journal January 1994
Constraining Emission Models of Luminous Blazar Sources journal September 2009
Optical spectroscopy of a complete sample of southern 2-Jy radio sources* journal August 1993
Spectroscopy of radio sources from the Parkes 2700 MHz survey journal November 1990
Swift observations of the very intense flaring activity of Mrk 421 during 2006. I. Phenomenological picture of electron acceleration and predictions for MeV/GeV emission journal April 2009
A numerical code to study the variability of Blazar emission journal October 2003
The unprecedented optical outburst of the quasar 3C 454.3: The WEBT campaign of 2004–2005 journal June 2006
Multifrequency monitoring of the blazar 0716+714 during the GASP-WEBT-AGILE campaign of 2007 journal February 2008
The GASP-WEBT monitoring of 3C 454.3 during the 2008 optical-to-radio and γ-ray outburst journal August 2009
Spectrophotometry and Photometry for Five Blazars and Their Central Black Hole Masses journal December 2005

Cited By (32)

H.E.S.S. discovery of VHE γ -rays from the quasar PKS 1510−089 journal June 2013
Fermi /LAT detection of extraordinary variability in the gamma-ray emission of the blazar PKS 1510-089 journal July 2013
Long-term multiwavelength studies of high-redshift blazar 0836+710 journal July 2013
Multiwavelength observations of a VHE gamma-ray flare from PKS 1510−089 in 2015 journal July 2017
Detection of persistent VHE gamma-ray emission from PKS 1510–089 by the MAGIC telescopes during low states between 2012 and 2017 journal November 2018
Long-term Multiband Study of High-redshift Blazar S5 0836+71 journal December 2018
VERY RAPID HIGH-AMPLITUDE GAMMA-RAY VARIABILITY IN LUMINOUS BLAZAR PKS 1510–089 STUDIED WITH FERMI -LAT journal March 2013
Radio and γ-ray follow-up of the exceptionally high-activity state of PKS 1510−089 in 2011 journal November 2012
Radio follow-up of the γ-ray flaring gravitational lens JVAS B0218+357 journal February 2016
Exploring the nature of the 2016 γ-ray emission in the blazar 1749+096 journal July 2018
On the origin of gamma-rays in Fermi blazars: beyondthe broad-line region journal May 2018
High-energy γ-ray properties of the Fanaroff-Riley type I radio galaxy NGC 1275: High-energy γ-ray properties of the FR I radio galaxy NGC 1275 journal March 2011
Polarization structure of 12 gamma-ray quasars at 5 and 15 GHz journal December 2012
Kinematics of Parsec-scale Jets of Gamma-Ray Blazars at 43 GHz within the VLBA-BU-BLAZAR Program journal September 2017
On the Multiwavelength Emission from CTA 102 journal August 2018
Multi-frequency Variability Study of Ton 599 during the High Activity of 2017 journal January 2019
Ejection of Double Knots from the Radio Core of PKS 1510–089 during the Strong Gamma-Ray Flares in 2015 journal May 2019
Measuring the Variability in K2 Optical Light Curves of the Binary Black Hole Candidate OJ 287 and Other Fermi Active Galactic Nuclei in 2014–2015 journal June 2019
Two-zone Emission Modeling of PKS 1510-089 during the High State of 2015 journal September 2019
Detection of persistent VHE gamma-ray emission from PKS 1510-089 by the MAGIC telescopes during low states between 2012 and 2017 text January 2018
Multiwavelength observations of a VHE gamma-ray flare from PKS 1510-089 in 2015 text January 2016
Multiwavelength observations of a VHE gamma-ray flare from PKS 1510−089 in 2015 text January 2017
H.E.S.S. discovery of VHE γ -rays from the quasar PKS 1510−089 text January 2013
Radio and gamma-ray follow-up of the exceptionally high activity state of PKS 1510-089 in 2011 text January 2012
Fermi LAT detection of extraordinary variability in the gamma-ray emission of the blazar PKS 1510-089 text January 2013
Constraining the Location of Gamma-Ray Flares in Luminous Blazars text January 2014
Radio follow-up of the gamma-ray flaring gravitational lens JVAS B0218+357 text January 2016
Multiwavelength observations of a VHE gamma-ray flare from PKS 1510-089 in 2015 text January 2016
On the origin of gamma rays in Fermi blazars: beyond the broad line region text January 2018
On the multi-wavelength Emission from CTA 102 text January 2018
Multi-frequency variability study of Ton 599 during high activity of 2017 text January 2018
Ejection of Double knots from the radio core of PKS 1510--089 during the strong gamma-ray flares in 2015 text January 2019

Similar Records

FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE AND MULTI-WAVELENGTH OBSERVATIONS OF THE FLARING ACTIVITY OF PKS 1510-089 BETWEEN 2008 SEPTEMBER AND 2009 JUNE
Journal Article · Fri Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Astrophysical Journal · OSTI ID:1357525

MAGIC gamma-ray and multi-frequency observations of flat spectrum radio quasar PKS 1510-089 in early 2012
Journal Article · Wed Sep 17 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Astronomy and Astrophysics · OSTI ID:1357525

Multiwavelength Observations of the Powerful Gamma-ray Quasar PKS 1510-089: Clues on the Jet Composition
Journal Article · Fri Sep 28 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · Astrophysical Journal · OSTI ID:1357525