Characterizing the Gamma-Ray Variability of the Brightest Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars Observed with the Fermi LAT

Meyer, Manuel; Scargle, Jeffrey D.; Blandford, Roger D.

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab1651

Title: Characterizing the Gamma-Ray Variability of the Brightest Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars Observed with the Fermi LAT

Journal Article · Wed May 22 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab1651· OSTI ID:1532397

^[1];

^[2]; Blandford, Roger D. ^[1]

Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Mountain View, CA (United States)

Almost 10 yr of γ-ray observations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope have revealed extreme γ-ray outbursts from flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), temporarily making these objects the brightest γ-ray emitters in the sky. Yet, the location and mechanisms of the γ-ray emission remain elusive. We characterize long-term γ-ray variability and the brightest γ-ray flares of six FSRQs. Consecutively zooming in on the brightest flares, which we identify in an objective way through Bayesian blocks and a hill-climbing algorithm, we find variability on subhour timescales and as short as minutes for two sources in our sample (3C 279 and CTA 102) and weak evidence for variability at timescales less than the Fermi satellite's orbit of 95 minutes for PKS 1510–089 and 3C 454.3. This indicates extremely compact emission regions in the jet. We do not find any signs of γ-ray absorption in the broad-line region (BLR), which indicates that γ-rays are produced at distances greater than hundreds of gravitational radii from the central black hole. This is further supported by a cross-correlation analysis between γ-ray and radio/millimeter light curves, which is consistent with γ-ray production at the same location as the millimeter core for 3C 273, CTA 102, and 3C 454.3. The inferred locations of the γ-ray production zones are still consistent with the observed decay times of the brightest flares if the decay is caused by external Compton scattering with BLR photons. Yet, the minute-scale variability is challenging to explain in such scenarios.

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Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-76SF00515

OSTI ID:: 1532397

Journal Information:: The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 877, Issue 1; ISSN 1538-4357

Publisher:: Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 63 works

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Science with the Cherenkov Telescope Array Acharya, B. S. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, DESY, Hamburg https://doi.org/10.3204/pubdb-2017-10909	text	January 2017
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Emission from Hot Dust in the Infrared Spectra of Gamma-ray Bright Blazars Malmrose, Michael; Marscher, Alan; Jorstad, Svetlana arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1103.1682	text	January 2011
Beaming and rapid variability of high-energy radiation from relativistic pair plasma reconnection Cerutti, Benoit; Werner, Gregory R.; Uzdensky, Dmitri A. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1205.3210	text	January 2012
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Studies in Astronomical Time Series Analysis. VI. Bayesian Block Representations Scargle, Jeffrey D.; Norris, Jay P.; Jackson, Brad arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1207.5578	text	January 2012
Radio and gamma-ray follow-up of the exceptionally high activity state of PKS 1510-089 in 2011 Orienti, M.; Koyama, S.; D'Ammando, F. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1210.4319	text	January 2012
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Time-correlation between the radio and gamma-ray activity in blazars and the production site of the gamma-ray emission Max-Moerbeck, W.; Hovatta, T.; Richards, J. L. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1408.6264	text	January 2014
On the location of the supermassive black hole in CTA 102 Fromm, C. M.; Perucho, M.; Ros, E. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1412.1317	text	January 2014
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Gamma-ray opacity of the anisotropic stratified broad-line regions in blazars Abolmasov, Pavel; Poutanen, Juri arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1609.03350	text	January 2016
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On the origin of gamma rays in Fermi blazars: beyond the broad line region Costamante, L.; Cutini, S.; Tosti, G. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1804.02408	text	January 2018
Multiwavelength Cross-Correlations and Flaring Activity in Bright Blazars Liodakis, I.; Romani, R. W.; Filippenko, A. V. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1808.05625	text	January 2018
The extended flare in CTA 102 in 2016 and 2017 within a hadronic model through cloud ablation by the relativistic jet Zacharias, Michael; Böttcher, Markus; Jankowsky, Felix arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1811.12299	text	January 2018
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Dynamics of Broad-Emission Line Region in NGC 5548: Hydromagnetic Wind Model versus Observations Bottorff, M.; Korista, K. T.; Shlosman, I. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/9610026	text	January 1996

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Investigating the multiwavelength behaviour of the flat spectrum radio quasar CTA 102 during 2013–2017 D’Ammando, F.; Raiteri, C. M.; Villata, M. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 490, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz2792	journal	October 2019
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Constraints on the emission region of 3C 279 during strong flares in 2014 and 2015 through VHE γ -ray observations with H.E.S.S. Abdalla, H.; Adam, R.; Aharonian, F. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, DESY, Hamburg https://doi.org/10.3204/pubdb-2019-03104	text	January 2019
Constraints on the emission region of 3C 279 during strong flares in 2014 and 2015 through VHE gamma-ray observations with H.E.S.S Collaboration, H. E. S. S.; Abdalla, H.; Adam, R. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1906.04996	text	January 2019
Identifying TeV Source Candidates among Fermi-LAT Unclassified Blazars Chiaro, G.; Meyer, M.; Di Mauro, M. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1909.10834	text	January 2019
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NuSTAR Observations and multi-wavelength modeling of the high-redshift BL Lac Object 4FGL J2146.5-1344 Rajagopal, M.; Marcotulli, L.; Ajello, M. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2001.05020	text	January 2020
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