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Full list of authors: Liodakis, Ioannis; Marscher, Alan P.; Agudo, Ivan; Berdyugin, Andrei V.; Bernardos, Maria I.; Bonnoli, Giacomo; Borman, George A.; Casadio, Carolina; Casanova, Victor; Cavazzuti, Elisabetta; Cavero, Nicole Rodriguez; Di Gesu, Laura; Di Lalla, Niccolo; Donnarumma, Immacolata; Ehlert, Steven R.; Errando, Manel; Escudero, Juan; Garcia-Comas, Maya; Agis-Gonzalez, Beatriz; Husillos, Cesar; Jormanainen, Jenni; Jorstad, Svetlana G.; Kagitani, Masato; Kopatskaya, Evgenia N.; Kravtsov, Vadim; Krawczynski, Henric; Lindfors, Elina; Larionova, Elena G.; Madejski, Grzegorz M.; Marin, Frederic; Marchini, Alessandro; Marshall, Herman L.; Morozova, Daria A.; Massaro, Francesco; Masiero, Joseph R.; Mawet, Dimitri; Middei, Riccardo; Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.; Myserlis, Ioannis; Negro, Michela; Nilsson, Kari; O'Dell, Stephen L.; Omodei, Nicola; Pacciani, Luigi; Paggi, Alessandro; Panopoulou, Georgia V.; Peirson, Abel L.; Perri, Matteo; Petrucci, Pierre-Olivier; Poutanen, Juri; Puccetti, Simonetta; Romani, Roger W.; Sakanoi, Takeshi; Savchenko, Sergey S.; Sota, Alfredo; Tavecchio, Fabrizio; Tinyanont, Samaporn; Vasilyev, Andrey A.; Weaver, Zachary R.; Zhovtan, Alexey V.; Antonelli, Lucio A.; Bachetti, Matteo; Baldini, Luca; Baumgartner, Wayne H.; Bellazzini, Ronaldo; Bianchi, Stefano; Bongiorno, Stephen D.; Bonino, Raffaella; Brez, Alessandro; Bucciantini, Niccolo; Capitanio, Fiamma; Castellano, Simone; Ciprini, Stefano; Costa, Enrico; De Rosa, Alessandra; Del Monte, Ettore; Di Marco, Alessandro; Doroshenko, Victor; Dovciak, Michal; Enoto, Teruaki; Evangelista, Yuri; Fabiani, Sergio; Ferrazzoli, Riccardo; Garcia, Javier A.; Gunji, Shuichi; Hayashida, Kiyoshi; Heyl, Jeremy; Iwakiri, Wataru; Karas, Vladimir; Kitaguchi, Takao; Kolodziejczak, Jeffery J.; La Monaca, Fabio; Latronico, Luca; Maldera, Simone; Manfreda, Alberto; Marinucci, Andrea; Matt, Giorgio; Mitsuishi, Ikuyuki; Mizuno, Tsunefumi; Muleri, Fabio; Ng, Stephen C. -Y.; Oppedisano, Chiara; Papitto, Alessandro; Pavlov, George G.; Pesce-Rollins, Melissa; Pilia, Maura; Possenti, Andrea; Ramsey, Brian D.; Rankin, John; Ratheesh, Ajay; Sgro, Carmelo; Slane, Patrick; Soffitta, Paolo; Spandre, Gloria; Tamagawa, Toru; Taverna, Roberto; Tawara, Yuzuru; Tennant, Allyn F.; Thomas, Nicolas E.; Tombesi, Francesco; Trois, Alessio; Tsygankov, Sergey; Turolla, Roberto; Vink, Jacco; Weisskopf, Martin C.; Wu, Kinwah; Xie, Fei; Zane, Silvia.--This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited., Most of the light from blazars, active galactic nuclei with jets of magnetized plasma that point nearly along the line of sight, is produced by high-energy particles, up to around 1 TeV. Although the jets are known to be ultimately powered by a supermassive black hole, how the particles are accelerated to such high energies has been an unanswered question. The process must be related to the magnetic field, which can be probed by observations of the polarization of light from the jets. Measurements of the radio to optical polarization—the only range available until now—probe extended regions of the jet containing particles that left the acceleration site days to years earlier1,2,3, and hence do not directly explore the acceleration mechanism, as could X-ray measurements. Here we report the detection of X-ray polarization from the blazar Markarian 501 (Mrk 501). We measure an X-ray linear polarization degree ΠX of around 10%, which is a factor of around 2 higher than the value at optical wavelengths, with a polarization angle parallel to the radio jet. This points to a shock front as the source of particle acceleration and also implies that the plasma becomes increasingly turbulent with distance from the shock. © The Author(s) 2022., I.L. was supported by the JSPS postdoctoral short-term fellowship programme. The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is a joint US and Italian mission. The US contribution is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and led and managed by its Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), with industry partner Ball Aerospace (contract NNM15AA18C). The Italian contribution is supported by the Italian Space Agency (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, ASI) through contract ASI-OHBI-2017-12-I.0, agreements ASI-INAF-2017-12-H0 and ASI-INFN-2017.13-H0, and its Space Science Data Center (SSDC) with agreements ASI-INAF-2022-14-HH.0 and ASI-INFN 2021-43-HH.0, and by the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy. This research used data products provided by the IXPE Team (MSFC, SSDC, INAF and INFN) and distributed with additional software tools by the High-Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Data from the Steward Observatory spectropolarimetric monitoring project were used. This programme is supported by Fermi Guest Investigator grants NNX08AW56G, NNX09AU10G, NNX12AO93G and NNX15AU81G. This research has made use of data from the RoboPol programme, a collaboration between Caltech, the University of Crete, the Institute of Astrophysics-Foundation for Research and Technology (IA-FORTH), the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) and the Nicolaus Copernicus University, which was conducted at Skinakas Observatory in Crete, Greece. The Instituto Astrofísica Andalucía (IAA)-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) co-authors acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MCINN) through the ‘Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa‘ award for the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia-CSIC (SEV-2017-0709). Acquisition and reduction of the POLAMI and Monitoring AGN with Polarimetry at the Calar Alto Telescopes (MAPCAT) data were supported in part by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN) through grants AYA2016-80889-P and PID2019-107847RB-C44. The POLAMI observations were carried out at the IRAM 30 m Telescope. IRAM is supported by the National Institute of Sciences of the Universe (INSU)/Scientific Research National Center (CNRS) (France), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG) (Germany) and Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN) (Spain). The research at Boston University was supported in part by National Science Foundation grant AST-2108622, NASA Fermi Guest Investigator grant 80NSSC21K1917 and NASA Swift Guest Investigator grant 80NSSC22K0537. This study uses observations conducted with the 1.8 m Perkins Telescope Observatory in Arizona (USA), which is owned and operated by Boston University. Based on observations obtained at the Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory as part of a continuing collaboration between the California Institute of Technology, NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Yale University and the National Astronomical Observatories of China. This research made use of Photutils, an Astropy package for detection and photometry of astronomical sources60. G.V.P. acknowledges support by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant no. HST-HF2-51444.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS5-26555. Based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, owned in collaboration by the University of Turku and Aarhus University, and operated jointly by Aarhus University, the University of Turku and the University of Oslo, representing Denmark, Finland and Norway, the University of Iceland and Stockholm University at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. The data presented here were obtained (in part) with ALFOSC, which is provided by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA) under a joint agreement with the University of Copenhagen and the Nordic Optical Telescope. V.K. thanks the Vilho, Yrjö and Kalle Väisälä Foundation. J.J. was supported by Academy of Finland project 320085. E.L. was supported by Academy of Finland projects 317636 and 320045. Part of the French contribution was supported by the CNRS and the French spatial agency (CNES). Based on observations collected at the Observatorio de Sierra Nevada, owned and operated by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA-CSIC). Based on observations collected at the Centro Astronomico Hispano-Aleman (CAHA), proposal 22A-2.2-015, operated jointly by Junta de Andalucia and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (IAA-CSIC).

Full list of authors: Middei, Riccardo; Liodakis, Ioannis; Perri, Matteo; Puccetti, Simonetta; Cavazzuti, Elisabetta; Di Gesu, Laura; Ehlert, Steven R.; Madejski, Grzegorz; Marscher, Alan P.; Marshall, Herman L.; Muleri, Fabio; Negro, Michela; Jorstad, Svetlana G.; Agis-Gonzalez, Beatriz; Agudo, Ivan; Bonnoli, Giacomo; Bernardos, Maria, I; Casanova, Victor; Garcia-Comas, Maya; Husillos, Cesar; Marchini, Alessandro; Sota, Alfredo; Kouch, Pouya M.; Lindfors, Elina; Borman, George A.; Kopatskaya, Evgenia N.; Larionova, Elena G.; Morozova, Daria A.; Savchenko, Sergey S.; Vasilyev, Andrey A.; Zhovtan, Alexey, V; Casadio, Carolina; Escudero, Juan; Myserlis, Ioannis; Hales, Antonio; Kameno, Seiji; Kneissl, Ruediger; Messias, Hugo; Nagai, Hiroshi; Blinov, Dmitry; Bourbah, Ioakeim G.; Kiehlmann, Sebastian; Kontopodis, Evangelos; Mandarakas, Nikos; Romanopoulos, Stylianos; Skalidis, Raphael; Vervelaki, Anna; Masiero, Joseph R.; Mawet, Dimitri; Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.; Panopoulou, Georgia, V; Tinyanont, Samaporn; Berdyugin, Andrei, V; Kagitani, Masato; Kravtsov, Vadim; Sakanoi, Takeshi; Imazawa, Ryo; Sasada, Mahito; Fukazawa, Yasushi; Kawabata, Koji S.; Uemura, Makoto; Mizuno, Tsunefumi; Nakaoka, Tatsuya; Akitaya, Hiroshi; Gurwell, Mark; Rao, Ramprasad; Di Lalla, Niccolo; Cibrario, Nicolo; Donnarumma, Immacolata; Kim, Dawoon E.; Omodei, Nicola; Pacciani, Luigi; Poutanen, Juri; Tavecchio, Fabrizio; Antonelli, Lucio A.; Bachetti, Matteo; Baldini, Luca; Baumgartner, Wayne H.; Bellazzini, Ronaldo; Bianchi, Stefano; Bongiorno, Stephen D.; Bonino, Raffaella; Brez, Alessandro; Bucciantini, Niccolo; Capitanio, Fiamma; Castellano, Simone; Ciprini, Stefano; Costa, Enrico; De Rosa, Alessandra; Del Monte, Ettore; Di Marco, Alessandro; Doroshenko, Victor; Dovciak, Michal; Enoto, Teruaki; Evangelista, Yuri; Fabiani, Sergio; Ferrazzoli, Riccardo; Garcia, Javier A.; Gunji, Shuichi; Hayashida, Kiyoshi; Heyl, Jeremy; Iwakiri, Wataru; Karas, Vladimir; Kitaguchi, Takao; Kolodziejczak, Jeffery J.; Krawczynski, Henric; La Monaca, Fabio; Latronico, Luca; Maldera, Simone; Manfreda, Alberto; Marin, Frederic; Marinucci, Andrea; Massaro, Francesco; Matt, Giorgio; Mitsuishi, Ikuyuki; Ng, C-Y; O'Dell, Stephen L.; Oppedisano, Chiara; Papitto, Alessandro; Pavlov, George G.; Peirson, Abel L.; Pesce-Rollins, Melissa; Petrucci, Pierre-Olivier; Pilia, Maura; Possenti, Andrea; Ramsey, Brian D.; Rankin, John; Ratheesh, Ajay; Romani, Roger W.; Sgro, Carmelo; Slane, Patrick; Soffitta, Paolo; Spandre, Gloria; Tamagawa, Toru; Taverna, Roberto; Tawara, Yuzuru; Tennant, Allyn F.; Thomas, Nicholas E.; Tombesi, Francesco; Trois, Alessio; Tsygankov, Sergey; Turolla, Roberto; Vink, Jacco; Weisskopf, Martin C.; Wu, Kinwah; Xie, Fei; Zane, Silvia.--This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited., Blazars are a class of jet-dominated active galactic nuclei with a typical double-humped spectral energy distribution. It is of common consensus that the synchrotron emission is responsible for the low frequency peak, while the origin of the high frequency hump is still debated. The analysis of X-rays and their polarization can provide a valuable tool to understand the physical mechanisms responsible for the origin of high-energy emission of blazars. We report the first observations of BL Lacertae (BL Lac) performed with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, from which an upper limit to the polarization degree ΠX < 12.6% was found in the 2–8 keV band. We contemporaneously measured the polarization in radio, infrared, and optical wavelengths. Our multiwavelength polarization analysis disfavors a significant contribution of proton-synchrotron radiation to the X-ray emission at these epochs. Instead, it supports a leptonic origin for the X-ray emission in BL Lac. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society., The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is a joint US and Italian mission. The US contribution is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and led and managed by its Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), with industry partner Ball Aerospace (contract NNM15AA18C). The Italian contribution is supported by the Italian Space Agency (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, ASI) through contract ASI-OHBI-2017-12-I.0, agreements ASI-INAF-2017-12-H0 and ASI-INFN-2017.13-H0, and its Space Science Data Center (SSDC), and by the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy. This research used data products provided by the IXPE Team (MSFC, SSDC, INAF, and INFN) and distributed with additional software tools by the High-Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). We acknowledge financial support from ASI-INAF agreement n. 2022-14-HH.0. The research at Boston University was supported in part by National Science Foundation grant AST-2108622 and NASA Swift Guest Investigator grant 80NSSC22K0537. This research has made use of data from the RoboPol program, a collaboration between Caltech, the University of Crete, IA-FORTH, IUCAA, the MPIfR, and the Nicolaus Copernicus University, which was conducted at Skinakas Observatory in Crete, Greece. The IAA-CSIC coauthors acknowledge financial support from the Spanish "Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion" (MCINN) through the "Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa" award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía-CSIC (SEV-2017-0709). Acquisition and reduction of the POLAMI, TOP-MAPCAR, and OSN data was supported in part by MICINN through grants AYA2016-80889-P and PID2019-107847RB-C44. The POLAMI observations were carried out at the IRAM 30 m Telescope. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany), and IGN (Spain). This Letter makes use of the following ALMA director's discretionary time data under proposal ESO#2021.A.00016.T. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA), and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST, and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO, and NAOJ. Some of the data reported here are based on observations obtained at the Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory as part of a continuing collaboration between the California Institute of Technology, NASA/JPL, Yale University, and the National Astronomical Observatories of China. This research made use of Photutils, an Astropy package for detection and photometry of astronomical sources (Bradley et al. 2019). G.V.P. acknowledges support by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF2-51444.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. The data in this study include observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, owned in collaboration by the University of Turku and Aarhus University, and operated jointly by Aarhus University, the University of Turku, and the University of Oslo, representing Denmark, Finland, and Norway, the University of Iceland and Stockholm University at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. The data presented here were obtained in part with ALFOSC, which is provided by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA) under a joint agreement with the University of Copenhagen and NOT. E.L. was supported by Academy of Finland projects 317636 and 320045. Part of the French contribution is supported by the Scientific Research National Center (CNRS) and the French Spatial Agency (CNES). Some of the data are based on observations collected at the Observatorio de Sierra Nevada, owned and operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC). Further data are based on observations collected at the Centro Astronómico Hispano-Alemán (CAHA), operated jointly by Junta de Andalucía and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IAA-CSIC). D.B., S.K., R.S., and N. M. acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 771282. C.C. acknowledges support by the European Research Council (ERC) under the HORIZON ERC Grants 2021 program under grant agreement No. 101040021. The Dipol-2 polarimeter was built in cooperation by the University of Turku, Finland, and the Leibniz Institut für Sonnenphysik, Germany, with support from the Leibniz Association grant SAW-2011-KIS-7. We are grateful to the Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, for the allocated observing time. A.H. acknowledges The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This work was supported by JST, the establishment of university fellowships toward the creation of science technology innovation; grant No. JPMJFS2129. This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI grant Nos. JP21H01137. This work was also partially supported by Optical and Near-Infrared Astronomy Inter-University Cooperation Program from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan., With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (CEX2021-001131-S).

In 2021 BL Lacertae underwent an extraordinary activity phase, which was intensively followed by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) Collaboration. We present the WEBT optical data in the BVRI bands acquired at 36 observatories around the world. In mid 2021 the source showed its historical maximum, with R = 11.14. The light curves display many episodes of intraday variability, whose amplitude increases with source brightness, in agreement with a geometrical interpretation of the long-term flux behaviour. This is also supported by the long-term spectral variability, with an almost achromatic trend with brightness. In contrast, short-term variations are found to be strongly chromatic and are ascribed to energetic processes in the jet. We also analyse the optical polarimetric behaviour, finding evidence of a strong correlation between the intrinsic fast variations in flux density and those in polarisation degree, with a time delay of about 13 h. This suggests a common physical origin. The overall behaviour of the source can be interpreted as the result of two mechanisms: variability on time scales greater than several days is likely produced by orientation effects, while either shock waves propagating in the jet, or magnetic reconnection, possibly induced by kink instabilities in the jet, can explain variability on shorter time scales. The latter scenario could also account for the appearance of quasi-periodic oscillations, with periods from a few days to a few hours, during outbursts, when the jet is more closely aligned with our line of sight and the time scales are shortened by relativistic effects., Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, submitted to MNRAS

Full list of authors: Raiteri, C. M.; Villata, M.; Carosati, D.; Benítez, E.; Kurtanidze, S. O.; Gupta, A. C.; Mirzaqulov, D. O.; D'Ammando, F.; Larionov, V. M.; Pursimo, T.; Acosta-Pulido, J. A.; Baida, G. V.; Balmaverde, B.; Bonnoli, G.; Borman, G. A.; Carnerero, M. I.; Chen, W. -P.; Dhiman, V.; Di Maggio, A.; Ehgamberdiev, S. A.; Hiriart, D.; Kimeridze, G. N.; Kurtanidze, O. M.; Lin, C. S.; Lopez, J. M.; Marchini, A.; Matsumoto, K.; Mujica, R.; Nakamura, M.; Nikiforova, A. A.; Nikolashvili, M. G.; Okhmat, D. N.; Otero-Santos, J.; Rizzi, N.; Sakamoto, T.; Semkov, E.; Sigua, L. A.; Stiaccini, L.; Troitsky, I. S.; Tsai, A. L.; Vasilyev, A. A.; Zhovtan, A. V., Blazar S5 0716+714 is well-known for its short-term variability, down to intraday time-scales. We here present the 2-min cadence optical light curve obtained by the TESS space telescope in 2019 December-2020 January and analyse the object fast variability with unprecedented sampling. Supporting observations by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope Collaboration in B, V, R, and I bands allow us to investigate the spectral variability during the TESS pointing. The spectral analysis is further extended in frequency to the UV and X-ray bands with data from the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. We develop a new method to unveil the shortest optical variability time-scales. This is based on progressive de-trending of the TESS light curve by means of cubic spline interpolations through the binned fluxes, with decreasing time bins. The de-trended light curves are then analysed with classical tools for time-series analysis (periodogram, autocorrelation, and structure functions). The results show that below 3 d there are significant characteristic variability time-scales of about 1.7, 0.5, and 0.2 d. Variability on time-scales $\lesssim 0.2$ d is strongly chromatic and must be ascribed to intrinsic energetic processes involving emitting regions, likely jet substructures, with dimension less than about 10-3 pc. In contrast, flux changes on time-scales $\gtrsim 0.5$ d are quasi-achromatic and are probably due to Doppler factor changes of geometric origin. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society, The Astronomical Observatory of the University of Siena thanks the friend amateur astronomers Massimo Conti and Claudio Vallerani for their invaluable and unceasing contribution, essential for the performance of the observatory. This paper includes data collected by the TESS mission. Funding for the TESS mission is provided by the NASA Explorer Program. This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System and of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, operated by the Nordic Optical Telescope Scientific Association at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. Based (partly) on data obtained with the STELLA robotic telescopes in Tenerife, an AIP facility jointly operated by AIP and IAC. This work is partly based upon observations carried out at the Observatorio Astronomico Nacional on the Sierra San Pedro Martir (OAN-SPM), Baja California, Mexico. This research was partially supported by the Bulgarian National Science Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science under grantsDN18-13/2017, KP06-H28/3, and KP-06-PN38/4. KM acknowledges JSPS KAKENHI grant no. JP19K03930. SOK acknowledges financial support by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia under contract PHDF-18-354. EB acknowledges support from DGAPAPAPIIT GRANT IN113320. GB acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the 'Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa' award to the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709).

The galaxy Mrk 501 has been monitored with the GT-48 Cherenkov telescope at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory for 14 years (1997–2010). Very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray photons have been recorded from Mrk 501 with a total significance of 15σ. The arrival directions of VHE gamma-ray photons have been mapped. They have been identified with Mrk 501. The TeV fluxes from Mrk 501 are shown to be highly variable. The light curves from the data of Cherenkov telescopes and the telescopes that observed Mrk 501 at high energies (MeV and GeV) and in the X-ray and optical bands are presented. Based on the GT-48 observations, we have constructed a TeV spectrum and determined the differential spectral index. The fluxes and spectral characteristics of Mrk 501 inferred from the GT-48 observations are consistent with the data of the MAGIC and H.E.S.S. Collaborations, respectively.

In an effort to locate the sites of emission at different frequencies and physical processes causing variability in blazar jets, we have obtained high time-resolution observations of BL Lacertae over a wide wavelength range: with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) at 6000–10000 Å with 2 minute cadence; with the Neil Gehrels Swift satellite at optical, UV, and X-ray bands; with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array at hard X-ray bands; with the Fermi Large Area Telescope at γ-ray energies; and with the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope for measurement of the optical flux density and polarization. All light curves are correlated, with similar structure on timescales from hours to days. The shortest timescale of variability at optical frequencies observed with TESS is ∼0.5 hr. The most common timescale is 13 ± 1 hr, comparable with the minimum timescale of X-ray variability, 14.5 hr. The multiwavelength variability properties cannot be explained by a change solely in the Doppler factor of the emitting plasma. The polarization behavior implies that there are both ordered and turbulent components to the magnetic field in the jet. Correlation analysis indicates that the X-ray variations lag behind the γ-ray and optical light curves by up to ∼0.4 day. The timescales of variability, cross-frequency lags, and polarization properties can be explained by turbulent plasma that is energized by a shock in the jet and subsequently loses energy to synchrotron and inverse Compton radiation in a magnetic field of strength ∼3 G.

In 1998–2011 the blazar (active galactic nucleus) BL Lacertae was observed at Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (CrAO) with the second-generation GT-48 Cherenkov telescope at energies >1 TeV with a total significance of 11.8σ. More than 20 flares and a fourfold change in yearly mean fluxes (>1 TeV) were recorded. The optical (B band) data obtained at CrAO and the TeV data are shown to correlate in some time intervals. The optical data are also compared with the X-ray RXTE/ASM (2–10 keV) data. In addition, the data from GT-48 are compared with the gamma-ray fluxes recorded by the Fermi LAT space telescope (0.1–300 GeV). The 2009 flare at TeV and Fermi energies has been studied. As a result, it has been found that as the activity rises the increase in flux at high energies exceeds its increase at low energies. This conclusion may be related to the conversion mechanism of particle acceleration. This is consistent with the results of studies for a similar object, 1ES 1426+428.

Ultra-high-energy gamma-rays have been detected from the Active Galactic Nucleus 1ES 1426+428 with a high significance level (8σ) in observations with the GT-48 Cerenkov telescope in 2002–2010. Four-day flare activity was detected in 2009, as has been confirmed by observations by the Fermi LAT space telescope at 1–300 GeV. The growth in TeV activity just before 2008 detected with the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory GT-48 telescope is consistent with the increased activity at energies >350 GeV indicated by data from the Whipple observatory Cerenkov detectors. It is proposed that the presence of more substantial variations at ultra-high gamma-ray energies compared to lower energies is related to more efficient particle acceleration in the jets of Active Galactic Nuclei associated with the generation of hard gamma-rays.

Based on the analysis of the published observational data on extragalactic and galactic sources in different energy ranges, it is concluded that there must be an emission generation phenomenon whereby the flux increases in a narrow energy range only, with higher-energy particles being more effectively accelerated.

Results of observations of active galactic nuclei with the gamma-telescope GT-48 during 2007–2009 are presented. It is shown that the very-high-energy (E > 1012 eV) gamma radiation from galaxies 3C 66A, Mrk 421, Mrk 501, and BL Lac is variable.

Monitoring of the active galaxy nucleus 3C 66A in the VHE γ-ray and analysis of data in X-rays and optical ranges over the period 1996–2009 were carried out. The nature of processes responsible for one or another type of radiation appeared to be very complicated since, at certain periods of time, an either positive or negative correlation may be observed between different types of radiation. Period of radiation P = 365 days in the X-ray range was found.

We consider variations of the radiation from the Crab Nebula in two energy ranges: X-rays (2–10 keV) and very-high-energy (>1 TeV) gamma rays. We demonstrate the presence of sine-shaped quasi-periodic variations in the X-ray range, with the period P = 862 d. A positive correlation was detected between variations of X-rays and gamma rays (the HEGRA data) with time.

Data of six-year observations of very high energy (E > 1011 eV) gamma-ray flux from the active galactic nucleus Mk 501 obtained using the ground-based GT-48 telescope are analyzed and compared with the 2–10 keV X-ray data obtained using the ASM instrument onboard the RXTE satellite. A positive correlation between the average annual X-and gamma-ray fluxes is demonstrated.

The active galactic nuclei BL Lac, 3C66A, and Mk501, as well as the Crab nebula and the Cyg γ-2 source were observed in 2006 at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory using the GT-48 gamma-ray telescope. Very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray fluxes at a high confidence level (Q > 4) were detected from the active galactic nuclei and the Crab nebula. VHE gamma-ray fluxes from the unidentified gamma-ray source Cyg γ-2 and the X-ray source Cyg X-3 were recorded during observations of Cyg γ-2.

The observations at the Research Institute “Crimean Astrophysical Observatory” with the GT-48 γ-ray telescope in 2006 revealed very high energy γ rays from the unidentified Cyg γ-2 source and the Cyg X-3 X-ray source with a high confidence level (Q > 4).