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Fermi Large Area Telescope detection of bright γ-ray outbursts from the peculiar quasar 4C +21.35

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [7];  [9];  [10];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [11];  [12];  [13];  [14];  [15];  [15] more »;  [16] « less
  1. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Kanagawa (Japan)
  2. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Kanagawa (Japan); Jagiellonian Univ., Krakow (Poland)
  3. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  4. IASF Palermo, Palermo (Italy); INAF-Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Roma (Italy)
  5. Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau (France)
  6. Univ. Bordeaux, Gradignan (France)
  7. Naval Research Lab., Washington, D.C. (United States)
  8. National Academy of Science, Washington, D.C. (United States); Naval Research Lab., Washington, D.C. (United States)
  9. Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Padova (Italy); Univ. di Padova, Padova (Italy)
  10. Univ. Bordeaux, Gradignan (France); Centre d'Etudes Nucleaires Bordeaux Gradignan, Gradignan (France)
  11. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States); Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  12. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
  13. INAF Istituto di Radioastronomia, Bologna (Italy)
  14. Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie, Bonn (Germany)
  15. Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Trieste (Italy); Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Trieste (Italy)
  16. Univ. degli Studi di Perugia, Perugia (Italy)
+ Show Author Affiliations
In this study, we report on the two-year-long Fermi-Large Area Telescope observation of the peculiar blazar 4C +21.35 (PKS 1222+216). This source was in a quiescent state from the start of the science operations of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in 2008 August until 2009 September, and then became more active, with gradually increasing flux and some moderately bright flares. In 2010 April and June, 4C +21.35 underwent a very strong GeV outburst composed of several major flares characterized by rise and decay timescales of the order of a day. During the outburst, the GeV spectra of 4C +21.35 displayed a broken power-law form with spectral breaks observed near 1-3 GeV photon energies. We demonstrate that, at least during the major flares, the jet in 4C +21.35 carried a total kinetic luminosity comparable to the total accretion power available to feed the outflow. We also discuss the origin of the break observed in the flaring spectra of 4C +21.35. We show that, in principle, a model involving annihilation of the GeV photons on the He II Lyman recombination continuum and line emission of "broad-line region" clouds may account for such. However, we also discuss the additional constraint provided by the detection of 4C +21.35 at 0.07-0.4 TeV energies by the MAGIC telescope, which coincided with one of the GeV flares of the source. We argue that there are reasons to believe that the lesssim TeV emission of 4C +21.35 (as well as the GeV emission of the source, if co-spatial) is not likely to be produced inside the broad-line region zone of highest ionization (~1017 cm from the nucleus), but instead originates further away from the active center, namely, around the characteristic scale of the hot dusty torus surrounding the 4C +21.35 nucleus (~1019 cm).
Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1357257
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 21576800
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 733; ISSN 0004-637X
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Limits on the extragalactic background light in the Fermi era journal June 2012
H.E.S.S. discovery of VHE γ -rays from the quasar PKS 1510−089 journal June 2013
The TANAMI Multiwavelength Program: Dynamic spectral energy distributions of southern blazars journal June 2016
Limits on the extragalactic background light in the Fermi era
  • Meyer, Manuel; Raue, Martin; Mazin, Daniel
  • HIGH ENERGY GAMMA-RAY ASTRONOMY: 5th International Meeting on High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy, AIP Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4772332
conference January 2012
The 2010 very high Energy γ-Ray Flare and 10 Years of Multi-Wavelength Observations of m 87 journal February 2012
JET EMISSION IN YOUNG RADIO SOURCES: A FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE GAMMA-RAY VIEW journal December 2013
Constraining the Location of Gamma-Ray Flares in Luminous Blazars journal June 2014
The Connection Between the Radio jet and the Gamma-Ray Emission in the Radio Galaxy 3c 120 journal July 2015
Resolving the High-Energy Universe with Strong Gravitational Lensing: the case of pks 1830–211 journal August 2015
Hints of an axion-like particle mixing in the GeV gamma-ray blazar data? journal November 2013
VERY RAPID HIGH-AMPLITUDE GAMMA-RAY VARIABILITY IN LUMINOUS BLAZAR PKS 1510–089 STUDIED WITH FERMI -LAT journal March 2013
Six Years of Fermi-Lat and Multi-Wavelength Monitoring of the Broad-Line Radio Galaxy 3c 120: jet Dissipation at Sub-Parsec Scales from the Central Engine journal January 2015
Evidence for an axion-like particle from PKS 1222 + 216 ? journal October 2012
Energetic constraints on a rapid gamma-ray flare in PKS 1222+216: Energetics of a VHE flare in PKS 1222+216 journal August 2012
H.E.S.S. discovery of VHE γ -rays from the quasar PKS 1510−089 text January 2013
Gamma-ray Emitting Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies: Past, Present, and Future text January 2019
Baryon Loading Efficiency and Particle Acceleration Efficiency of Relativistic Jets: Cases for low Luminosity bl lacs journal August 2016
Characterizing the Gamma-Ray Variability of the Brightest Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars Observed with the Fermi LAT journal May 2019
Multiscale Time- and Frequency-domain Likelihood Analysis with Photon Weights journal November 2019
The 2010 very high energy gamma-ray flare & 10 years of multi-wavelength observations of M 87 text January 2011
Limits on the extragalactic background light in the Fermi era text January 2012
Hints of an axion-like particle mixing in the GeV gamma-ray blazar data? text January 2013
Constraining the Location of Gamma-Ray Flares in Luminous Blazars text January 2014
Resolving the High Energy Universe with Strong Gravitational Lensing: The Case of PKS 1830-211 text January 2015
Baryon Loading Efficiency and Particle Acceleration Efficiency of Relativistic Jets: Cases For Low Luminosity BL Lacs text January 2016

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
galaxies: active
galaxies: jets
gamma rays: galaxies
quasars: general
quasars: individual (4C +21.35)
radiation mechanisms: non-thermal