Author: "Hovatta, T" - Searchworks@Jio Institute Digital Library Search Results

Your search keyword '"Hovatta, T"' showing total 951 results

Start Over Author "Hovatta, T"

951 results on '"Hovatta, T"'

1. Time-dependent modelling of short-term variability in the TeV-blazar VER J0521+211 during the major flare in 2020

Author: MAGIC Collaboration, Abe, S., Abhir, J., Abhishek, A., Acciari, V. A., Aguasca-Cabot, A., Agudo, I., Aniello, T., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Arcaro, C., Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batković, I., Bautista, A., Baxter, J., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bernardini, E., Bernete, J., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Bronzini, E., Burelli, I., Campoy-Ordaz, A., Carosi, A., Carosi, R., Carretero-Castrillo, M., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Cerasole, D., Ceribella, G., Chai, Y., Cifuentes, A., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., de Menezes, R., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Di Pierro, F., Di Tria, R., Di Venere, L., Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Eisenberger, L., Elsaesser, D., Escudero, J., Fariña, L., Fattorini, A., Foffano, L., Font, L., Fröse, S., Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Paiva, J. G. Giesbrecht, Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Gradetzke, T., Grau, R., Green, D., Green, J. G., Günther, P., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Hassan, T., Heckmann, L., Llorente, J. Herrera, Hrupec, D., Imazawa, R., Ishio, K., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jormanainen, J., Kankkunen, S., Kayanoki, T., Kerszberg, D., Kluge, G. W., Kobayashi, Y., Kouch, P. M., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Láinez, M., Lamastra, A., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Lorini, A., Lyard, E., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mangano, S., Mannheim, K., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Martínez-Chicharro, M., Mas-Aguilar, A., Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., González, M. Molero, Molina, E., Mondal, H. A., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Nakamori, T., Nanci, C., Neustroev, V., Nickel, L., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nigro, C., Nikolić, L., Nilsson, K., Nishijima, K., Ekoume, T. Njoh, Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Okumura, A., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Peresano, M., Persic, M., Pihet, M., Pirola, G., Podobnik, F., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Principe, G., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Saturni, F. G., Schmidt, K., Schmuckermaier, F., Schubert, J. L., Schweizer, T., Sciaccaluga, A., Silvestri, G., Sitarek, J., Sliusar, V., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strišković, J., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Tajima, H., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Temnikov, P., Terauchi, K., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verna, G., Viale, I., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Walter, R., Wersig, F., Will, M., Wunderlich, C., Yamamoto, T., collaborators, MWL, Bachev, R., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Filippenko, A. V., Hovatta, T., Jorstad, S. G., Kiehlmann, S., Lähteenmäki, A., Liodakis, I., Marscher, A. P., Max-Moerbeck, W., Omeliukh, A., Pursimo, T., Readhead, A. C. S., Rodrigues, X., Tornikoski, M., Wierda, F., and Zheng, W.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The BL Lacertae object VER J0521+211 underwent a notable flaring episode in February 2020. A short-term monitoring campaign, led by the MAGIC (Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov) collaboration, covering a wide energy range from radio to very-high-energy (VHE, 100 GeV < E < 100 TeV) gamma rays was organised to study its evolution. These observations resulted in a consistent detection of the source over six consecutive nights in the VHE gamma-ray domain. Combining these nightly observations with an extensive set of multiwavelength data made modelling of the blazar's spectral energy distribution (SED) possible during the flare. This modelling was performed with a focus on two plausible emission mechanisms: i) a leptonic two-zone synchrotron-self-Compton scenario, and ii) a lepto-hadronic one-zone scenario. Both models effectively replicated the observed SED from radio to the VHE gamma-ray band. Furthermore, by introducing a set of evolving parameters, both models were successful in reproducing the evolution of the fluxes measured in different bands throughout the observing campaign. Notably, the lepto-hadronic model predicts enhanced photon and neutrino fluxes at ultra-high energies (E > 100 TeV). While the photon component, generated via decay of neutral pions, is not directly observable as it is subject to intense pair production (and therefore extinction) through interactions with the cosmic microwave background photons, neutrino detectors (e.g. IceCube) can probe the predicted neutrino component. Finally, the analysis of the gamma-ray spectra, as observed by MAGIC and the Fermi-LAT telescopes, yielded a conservative 95\% confidence upper limit of z \leq 0.244 for the redshift of this blazar., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A
Published: 2024

2. Investigating Differences in the Palomar-Green Blazar Population Using Polarization

Author: Baghel, Janhavi, Kharb, P., Hovatta, T., Ho, Luis C., Harrison, C., Lindfors, E., S., Silpa, and Gulati, S.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: We present polarization images with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in A and B-array configurations at 6 GHz of 7 radio-loud (RL) quasars and 8 BL Lac objects belonging to the Palomar-Green (PG) `blazar' sample. This completes our arcsecond-scale polarization study of an optically-selected volume-limited blazar sample comprising 16 radio-loud quasars and 8 BL Lac objects. Using the VLA, we identify kpc-scale polarization in the cores and jets/lobes of all the blazars, with fractional polarization varying from around $0.8 \pm 0.3$% to $37 \pm 6$%. The kpc-scale jets in PG RL quasars are typically aligned along their parsec-scale jets and show apparent magnetic fields parallel to jet directions in their jets/cores and magnetic field compression in their hotspots. The quasars show evidence of interaction with their environment as well as restarted AGN activity through morphology, polarization and spectral indices. These quasi-periodic jet modulations and restarted activity may be indicative of an unstable accretion disk undergoing transition. We find that the polarization characteristics of the BL Lacs are consistent with their jets being reoriented multiple times, with no correlation between their core apparent magnetic field orientations and pc-scale jet directions. We find that the low synchrotron peaked BL Lacs show polarization and radio morphology features typical of `strong' jet sources as defined by Meyer et al. (2011) for the `blazar envelope scenario', which posits a division based on jet profiles and velocity gradients rather than total jet power., Comment: 32 pages, 19 figures, 6 tables, ApJ (accepted)
Published: 2024

3. Multi-wavelength study of OT 081: broadband modelling of a transitional blazar

Author: MAGIC Collaboration, Abe, H., Abe, S., Acciari, V. A., Agudo, I., Aniello, T., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Arcaro, C., Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., Baquero, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Batković, I., Baxter, J., Bernardini, E., Bernardos, M., Bernete, J., Berti, A., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Burelli, I., Busetto, G., Campoy-Ordaz, A., Carosi, A., Carosi, R., Carretero-Castrillo, M., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Chai, Y., Cifuentes, A., Cikota, S., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Del Popolo, A., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Emery, G., Escudero, J., Fariña, L., Fattorini, A., Foffano, L., Font, L., Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., López, R. J. García, Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Paiva, J. G. Giesbrecht, Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Grau, R., Green, J. G., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Heckmann, L., Herrera, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Imazawa, R., Inada, T., Iotov, R., Ishio, K., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jormanainen, J., Kerszberg, D., Kluge, G. W., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lezáun, M. Láinez, Lamastra, A., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Linhoff, L., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Lorini, A., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Maneva, G., Mang, N., Manganaro, M., Mangano, S., Mannheim, K., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Mas-Aguilar, A., Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Mićanović, S., Miceli, D., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Mondal, H. A., Morcuende, D., Nanci, C., Neustroev, V., Nigro, C., Nishijima, K., Ekoume, T. Njoh, Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletić, L., Persic, M., Pihet, M., Pirola, G., Podobnik, F., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Principe, G., Priyadarshi, C., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schmuckermaier, F., Schubert, J. L., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strišković, J., Strom, D., Suda, Y., Surić, T., Suutarinen, S., Tajima, H., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Tosti, L., Truzzi, S., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Viale, I., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Walter, R., Yamamoto, T., Collaborators, Benkhali, F. Ait, Becherini, Y., Bi, B., Böttcher, M., Bolmont, J., Brown, A., Bulik, T., Casanova, S., Chand, T., Chandra, S., Chibueze, J., Chibueze, O., Egberts, K., Einecke, S., Ernenwein, J. -P., Fontaine, G., Gabici, S., Goswami, P., Holler, M., Jamrozy, M., Joshi, V., Kasai, E., Katarzyński, K., Khatoon, R., Khélifi, B., Kluzniak, W., Kosack, K., Stum, S. Le, Lemière, A., Marx, R., Moderski, R., Moghadam, M. O., de Naurois, M., Niemiec, J., O'Brien, P., Ostrowski, M., Peron, G., Pita, S., Pühlhofer, G., Quirrenbach, A., Rudak, B., Sahakian, V., Sanchez, D. A., Santangelo, A., Sasaki, M., Schutte, H. M., Seglar-Arroyo, M., Shapopi, J. N. S., Steenkamp, R., Steppa, C., Suzuki, H., Tanaka, T., Tluczykont, M., Venter, C., Wagner, S. J., Wierzcholska, A., Zdziarski, A. A., Żywucka, N., Collaboration, Fermi-LAT, González, J. Becerra, Ciprini, S., Venters, T. M., collaborators, MWL, D'Ammando, F., Esteban-Gutiérrez, A., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Filippenko, A. V., Hovatta, T., Jermak, H., Jorstad, S., Kiehlmann, S., Lähteenmäki, A., Larionov, V. M., Larionova, E., Marscher, A. P., Morozova, D., Max-Moerbeck, W., Readhead, A. C. S., Reeves, R., Steele, I. A., Tornikoski, M., Verrecchia, F., Xiao, H., and Zheng, W.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: OT 081 is a well-known, luminous blazar that is remarkably variable in many energy bands. We present the first broadband study of the source which includes very-high-energy (VHE, $E>$100\,GeV) $\gamma$-ray data taken by the MAGIC and H.E.S.S. imaging Cherenkov telescopes. The discovery of VHE $\gamma$-ray emission happened during a high state of $\gamma$-ray activity in July 2016, observed by many instruments from radio to VHE $\gamma$-rays. We identify four states of activity of the source, one of which includes VHE $\gamma$-ray emission. Variability in the VHE domain is found on daily timescales. The intrinsic VHE spectrum can be described by a power-law with index $3.27\pm0.44_{\rm stat}\pm0.15_{\rm sys}$ (MAGIC) and $3.39\pm0.58_{\rm stat}\pm0.64_{\rm sys}$ (H.E.S.S.) in the energy range of 55--300\,GeV and 120--500\,GeV, respectively. The broadband emission cannot be sucessfully reproduced by a simple one-zone synchrotron self-Compton model. Instead, an additional external Compton component is required. We test a lepto-hadronic model that reproduces the dataset well and a proton-synchrotron dominated model that requires an extreme proton luminosity. Emission models that are able to successfully represent the data place the emitting region well outside of the Broad Line Region (BLR) to a location at which the radiative environment is dominated by the infrared thermal radiation field of the dusty torus. In the scenario described by this flaring activity, the source appears to be an FSRQ, in contrast with past categorizations. This suggests that the source can be considered to be a transitional blazar, intermediate between BL~Lac and FSRQ objects., Comment: Accepted on MNRAS Corresponding authors: M. Manganaro, J. Becerra Gonz\'alez, M. Seglar-Arroyo, D. A. Sanchez
Published: 2024

4. PKS~J0805$-$0111: A Second Owens Valley Radio Observatory Blazar Showing Highly Significant Sinusoidal Radio Variability -- The Tip of the Iceberg

Author: de la Parra, P. V., Kiehlmann, S., Mroz, P., Readhead, A. C. S., Synani, A., Begelman, M. C., Blandford, R. D., Ding, Y., Harrison, F., Liodakis, I., Max-Moerbeck, W., Pavlidou, V., Reeves, R., Vallisneri, M., Aller, M. F., Graham, M. J., Hovatta, T., Lawrence, C. R., Lazio, T. J. W., Mahabal, A. A., Molina, B., O'Neill, S., Pearson, T. J., Ravi, V., Tassis, K., and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) observations of supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) candidate PKS~2131$-$021 revealed, for the first time, six likely characteristics of the phenomenology exhibited by SMBHB in blazars, of which the most unexpected and critical is sinusoidal flux density variations. We have now identified a second blazar, PKS~J0805$-$0111, showing significant sinusoidal variations, with an observed period that translates to $1.422 \pm 0.005$ yr in the rest frame of the $z = 1.388$ object. We generate $10^6$ simulated light curves to reproduce the radio variability characteristics of PKS~J0805$-$0111, and show that the global probability, considering the \textit{look-elsewhere effect}, indicates that the observed periodicity can be attributed to the red noise tail of the power spectral density, with a $p_0$ value of $7.8 \times 10^{-5}$ (i.e. 3.78$\sigma$). PKS J0805$-$0111 displays all six characteristics observed in PKS 2131$-$021. Taking into account the well-defined OVRO sample size, the false positive probability $\sim 0.22$, but the rare behavior makes this a strong SMBHB candidate. The discovery of a second SMBHB candidate exhibiting these rare characteristics reveals that PKS~2131$-$021 is not a unique, isolated case. With these two strong cases we are clearly seeing only the tip of the iceberg. We estimate that the number of SMBHB candidates amongst blazars $\sim$ 1 in 100.
Published: 2024

5. Broadband Multi-wavelength Properties of M87 during the 2018 EHT Campaign including a Very High Energy Flaring Episode

Author: Algaba, J. C., Balokovic, M., Chandra, S., Cheong, W. Y., Cui, Y. Z., D'Ammando, F., Falcone, A. D., Ford, N. M., Giroletti, M., Goddi, C., Gurwell, M. A., Hada, K., Haggard, D., Jorstad, S., Kaur, A., Kawashima, T., Kerby, S., Kim, J. Y., Kino, M., Kravchenko, E. V., Lee, S. S., Lu, R. S., Markoff, S., Michail, J., Neilsen, J., Nowak, M. A., Principe, G., Ramakrishnan, V., Ripperda, B., Sasada, M., Savchenko, S. S., Sheridan, C., Akiyama, K., Alberdi, A., Alef, W., Anantua, R., Asada, K., Azulay, R., Bach, U., Baczko, A. -K., Ball, D., Bandyopadhyay, B., Barrett, J., Bauböck, M., Benson, B. A., Bintley, D., Blackburn, L., Blundell, R., Bouman, K. L., Bower, G. C., Boyce, H., Bremer, M., Brissenden, R., Britzen, S., Broderick, A. E., Broguiere, D., Bronzwaer, T., Bustamante, S., Carlstrom, J. E., Chael, A., Chan, C. -K., Chang, D. O., Chatterjee, K., Chatterjee, S., Chen, M. -T., Chen, Y., Cheng, X., Cho, I., Christian, P., Conroy, N. S., Conway, J. E., Crawford, T. M., Crew, G. B., Cruz-Osorio, A., Dahale, R., Davelaar, J., De Laurentis, M., Deane, R., Dempsey, J., Desvignes, G., Dexter, J., Dhruv, V., Dihingia, I. K., Doeleman, S. S., Dzib, S. A., Eatough, R. P., Emami, R., Falcke, H., Farah, J., Fish, V. L., Fomalont, E., Ford, H. A., Foschi, M., Fraga-Encinas, R., Freeman, W. T., Friberg, P., Fromm, C. M., Fuentes, A., Galison, P., Gammie, C. F., García, R., Gentaz, O., Georgiev, B., Gold, R., Gómez-Ruiz, A. I., Gómez, J. L., Gu, M., Hesper, R., Heumann, D., Ho, L. C., Ho, P., Honma, M., Huang, C. -W. L., Huang, L., Hughes, D. H., Ikeda, S., Impellizzeri, C. M. V., Inoue, M., Issaoun, S., James, D. J., Jannuzi, B. T., Janssen, M., Jeter, B., Jiang, W., Jiménez-Rosales, A., Johnson, M. D., Jones, A. C., Joshi, A. V., Jung, T., Karuppusamy, R., Keating, G. K., Kettenis, M., Kim, D. -J., Kim, J., Koay, J. Y., Kocherlakota, P., Kofuji, Y., Koch, P. M., Koyama, S., Kramer, C., Kramer, J. A., Kramer, M., Krichbaum, T. P., Kuo, C. -Y., La Bella, N., Levis, A., Li, Z., Lico, R., Lindahl, G., Lindqvist, M., Lisakov, M., Liu, J., Liu, K., Liuzzo, E., Lo, W. -P., Lobanov, A. P., Loinard, L., Lonsdale, C. J., Lowitz, A. E., MacDonald, N. R., Mao, J., Marchili, N., Marrone, D. P., Marscher, A. P., Martí-Vidal, I., Matsushita, S., Matthews, L. D., Medeiros, L., Menten, K. M., Mizuno, I., Mizuno, Y., Montgomery, J., Moran, J. M., Moriyama, K., Moscibrodzka, M., Mulaudzi, W., Müller, C., Müller, H., Mus, A., Musoke, G., Myserlis, I., Nagai, H., Nagar, N. M., Nair, D. G., Nakamura, M., Narayanan, G., Natarajan, I., Nathanail, A., Fuentes, S. Navarro, Ni, C., Oh, J., Okino, H., Olivares, H., Oyama, T., Özel, F., Palumbo, D. C. M., Paraschos, G. Filippos, Park, J., Parsons, H., Patel, N., Pen, U. -L., Pesce, D. W., Piétu, V., PopStefanija, A., Porth, O., Prather, B., Psaltis, D., Pu, H. -Y., Rao, R., Rawlings, M. G., Raymond, A. W., Rezzolla, L., Ricarte, A., Roelofs, F., Romero-Cañizales, C., Ros, E., Roshanineshat, A., Rottmann, H., Roy, A. L., Ruiz, I., Ruszczyk, C., Rygl, K. L. J., Sánchez, S., Sánchez-Argüelles, D., Sánchez-Portal, M., Satapathy, K., Savolainen, T., Schloerb, F. P., Schonfeld, J., Schuster, K. -F., Shao, L., Shen, Z., Small, D., Sohn, B. W., SooHoo, J., Salas, L. D. Sosapanta, Souccar, K., Stanway, J. S., Sun, H., Tazaki, F., Tetarenko, A. J., Tiede, P., Tilanus, R. P. J., Titus, M., Toma, K., Torne, P., Toscano, T., Traianou, E., Trent, T., Trippe, S., Turk, M., van Bemmel, I., van Langevelde, H. J., van Rossum, D. R., Vos, J., Wagner, J., Ward-Thompson, D., Wardle, J., Washington, J. E., Weintroub, J., Wharton, R., Wielgus, M., Wiik, K., Witzel, G., Wondrak, M. F., Wong, G. N., Wu, Q., Yadlapalli, N., Yamaguchi, P., Yfantis, A., Yoon, D., Young, A., Younsi, Z., Yu, W., Yuan, F., Yuan, Y. -F., Zensus, J. A., Zhang, S., Zhao, G. -Y., Zhao, S. -S., Bellazzini, R., Berenji, B., Bissaldi, E., Blandford, R. D., Bonino, R., Bruel, P., Cameron, R. A., Caraveo, P. A., Cavazzuti, E., Cheung, C. C., Ciprini, S., Orestano, P. Cristarella, Cutini, S., Di Lalla, N., Dinesh, A., Di Venere, L., Domínguez, A., Fegan, S. J., Franckowiak, A., Fukazawa, Y., Fusco, P., Gargano, F., Gasbarra, C., Germani, S., Giliberti, M., Grenier, I. A., Hays, E., Horan, D., Kuss, M., Larsson, S., Liodakis, I., Longo, F., Loparco, F., Lovellette, M. N., Maldera, S., Mazziotta, M. N., Mereu, I., Michelson, P. F., Mirabal, N., Mizuno, T., Monzani, M. E., Morselli, A., Negro, M., Omodei, N., Orlando, E., Persic, M., Rainò, S., Rani, B., Reimer, A., Reimer, O., Sánchez-Conde, M., Parkinson, P. M. Saz, Sgrò, C., Siskind, E. J., Spinelli, P., Suson, D. J., Tajima, H., Torres, D. F., Zaharijas, G., Aharonian, F., Benkhali, F. Ait, Aschersleben, J., Ashkar, H., Backes, M., Martins, V. Barbosa, Batzofin, R., Becherini, Y., Berge, D., Böttcher, M., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., de Lavergne, M. de Bony, Borowska, J., Bouyahiaoui, M., Bradascio, F., Brose, R., Brown, A., Bruno, B., Bulik, T., Burger-Scheidlin, C., Casanova, S., Cecil, R., Celic, J., Cerruti, M., Chand, T., Chen, A., Chibueze, J., Chibueze, O., Czerny, T., Dainotti, M., Dubus, F., Dumm, J., D'Urso, G., Drouhin, A., Durouchoux, P., Fabbian, D., Franczak, D., Funk, M., Gabanyi, J., Gaggero, G., Garcia, N., Geiger, A., Giorgi, M. G., Gleeson, S., Gonzalez, S., Gauthier, G. T., Grasso, P., Hovatta, T., Hyman, J., Kaaret, C., Kirk, D., Lal, S., Lesch, T. M., Lohmann, K., Massaro, C., Mayer, M., Meintjes, P. J., Miral, E., Mirra, A., Neronov, J., Padovani, E., Paccagnella, F., Parisi, E., Piotrowska, A., Pohl, S., Puga, G., Ramirez, L. R., Reville, S., Rowell, D. S., Rudge, M., Rybka, G., Schlenstedt, M. S., Seo, E. S., Svirski, J., Taylor, J. R., Torres, F., Tsujimoto, K., Tosti, F., Volpi, S., Walraven, N. A., Welker, L., Zietkiewicz, M., Abdalla, G., Aleva, C., Benkhali, H. A. Ait, Aldous, M., Amin, M., Aschieri, M. A., de Deus, E., Santos, J. de Los, Fontanot, D., Jorfi, S., Levens, P., Zwart, A. E. E., Oliviero, S., Puglisi, D., Thiel, M., Zaharijas, C., Amaral, F., Boella, L., Holincheck, L., Queiroz, R., Sofue, H., Tellis, G., Wagner, G., Wierzcholska, A., Zacharias, M., Zdziarski, A. A., Zech, A., Zywucka, N., Abe, S., Abhir, J., Abhishek, A., Acciari, V. A., Aguasca-Cabot, A., Agudo, I., Aniello, T., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Arcaro, C., Artero, M., Asano, K., Babic, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batkovic, I., Bautista, A., Baxter, J., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bernardini, E., Bernete, J., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bosnjak, Z., Bronzini, E., Burelli, I., Busetto, G., Campoy-Ordaz, A., Carosi, A., Carosi, R., Carretero-Castrillo, M., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Cerasole, D., Ceribella, G., Chai, Y., Cifuentes, A., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., de Menezes, R., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Di Pierro, F., Di Tria, R., Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Escudero, J., Fariña, L., Fattorini, A., Foffano, L., Font, L., Fröse, S., Fukami, S., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Paiva, J. G. Giesbrecht, Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinovic, N., Gradetzke, T., Grau, R., Green, D., Green, J. G., Günther, P., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Hassan, T., Heckmann, L., Llorente, J. Herrera, Hrupec, D., Imazawa, R., Ishio, K., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jormanainen, J., Kayanoki, T., Kerszberg, D., Kluge, G. W., Kobayashi, Y., Kouch, P. M., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Laínez, M., Lamastra, A., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Lombardi, S., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Lorini, A., Lyard, E., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mangano, S., Mannheim, K., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Martínez-Chicharro, M., Mas-Aguilar, A., Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., González, M. Molero, Molina, E., Mondal, H. A., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Nakamori, T., Nanci, C., Neustroev, V., Nickel, L., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nigro, C., Nikolic, L., Nilsson, K., Nishijima, K., Ekoume, T. Njoh, Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Okumura, A., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Peresano, M., Pihet, M., Pirola, G., Podobnik, F., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Priyadarshi, C., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Saturni, F. G., Schmidt, K., Schmuckermaier, F., Schubert, J. L., Schweizer, T., Sciaccaluga, A., Silvestri, G., Sitarek, J., Sliusar, V., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strišković, J., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Suutarinen, S., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terauchi, K., Terzic, T., Teshima, M., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verna, G., Viale, I., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Walter, R., Will, M., Wunderlich, C., Yamamoto, T., Acharyya, A., Adams, C. B., Bangale, P., Bartkoske, J. T., Benbow, W., Christiansen, J. L., Duerr, A., Errando, M., Feng, Q., Foote, G. M., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Hanlon, W., Hervet, O., Hinrichs, C. E., Holder, J., Humensky, T. B., Jin, W., Johnson, M. N., Kaaret, P., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Kleiner, T. K., Korzoun, N., Krennrich, F., Kumar, S., Lang, M. J., Lundy, M., Maier, G., McGrath, C. E., Millard, M. J., Mooney, C. L., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Ning, W., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Pohl, M., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Roache, E., Ryan, J. L., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Santander, M., Sembroski, G. H., Shang, R., Splettstoesser, M., Talluri, A. K., Tucci, J. V., Valverde, J., Vassiliev, V. V., Williams, D. A., Wong, S. L., Chen, Z., Cui, L., Hirota, T., Li, B., Li, G., Liu, Q., Liu, X., Liu, Z., Ma, J., Niinuma, K., Ro, H., Sakai, N., Sawada-Satoh, S., Wajima, K., Wang, J., Wang, N., Xia, B., Yan, H., Yonekura, Y., Zhang, H., Zhao, R., Zhong, W., group, The Event Horizon Telescope - Multi-wavelength science working, Collaboration, The Event Horizon Telescope, Collaboration, The Fermi Large Area Telescope, Collaboration, H. E. S. S., Collaboration, MAGIC, Collaboration, VERITAS, and Collaboration, EAVN
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: The nearby elliptical galaxy M87 contains one of the only two supermassive black holes whose emission surrounding the event horizon has been imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). In 2018, more than two dozen multi-wavelength (MWL) facilities (from radio to gamma-ray energies) took part in the second M87 EHT campaign. The goal of this extensive MWL campaign was to better understand the physics of the accreting black hole M87*, the relationship between the inflow and inner jets, and the high-energy particle acceleration. Understanding the complex astrophysics is also a necessary first step towards performing further tests of general relativity. The MWL campaign took place in April 2018, overlapping with the EHT M87* observations. We present a new, contemporaneous spectral energy distribution (SED) ranging from radio to very high energy (VHE) gamma-rays, as well as details of the individual observations and light curves. We also conduct phenomenological modelling to investigate the basic source properties. We present the first VHE gamma-ray flare from M87 detected since 2010. The flux above 350 GeV has more than doubled within a period of about 36 hours. We find that the X-ray flux is enhanced by about a factor of two compared to 2017, while the radio and millimetre core fluxes are consistent between 2017 and 2018. We detect evidence for a monotonically increasing jet position angle that corresponds to variations in the bright spot of the EHT image. Our results show the value of continued MWL monitoring together with precision imaging for addressing the origins of high-energy particle acceleration. While we cannot currently pinpoint the precise location where such acceleration takes place, the new VHE gamma-ray flare already presents a challenge to simple one-zone leptonic emission model approaches, and emphasises the need for combined image and spectral modelling., Comment: 46 pages, 23 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics on August. 29, 2024
Published: 2024
Full Text: View/download PDF

6. Dark Matter Line Searches with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Author: Abe, S., Abhir, J., Abhishek, A., Acero, F., Acharyya, A., Adam, R., Aguasca-Cabot, A., Agudo, I., Aguirre-Santaella, A., Alfaro, J., Alfaro, R., Alvarez-Crespo, N., Batista, R. Alves, Amans, J. -P., Amato, E., Ambrosi, G., Angel, L., Aramo, C., Arcaro, C., Arnesen, T. T. H., Arrabito, L., Asano, K., Ascasibar, Y., Aschersleben, J., Ashkar, H., Backes, M., Baktash, A., Balazs, C., Balbo, M., Larriva, A. Baquero, Martins, V. Barbosa, de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batković, I., Batzofin, R., Baxter, J., González, J. Becerra, Beck, G., Benbow, W., Berge, D., Bernardini, E., Bernete, J., Bernlöhr, K., Berti, A., Bertucci, B., Bhattacharjee, P., Bhattacharyya, S., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Bissaldi, E., Biteau, J., Blanch, O., Blazek, J., Bocchino, F., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., Bonnoli, G., Bonollo, A., Bordas, P., Bosnjak, Z., Bottacini, E., Böttcher, M., Bringmann, T., Bronzini, E., Brose, R., Brown, A. M., Brunelli, G., Bulgarelli, A., Bulik, T., Burelli, I., Burmistrov, L., Burton, M., Buscemi, M., Bylund, T., Cailleux, J., Campoy-Ordaz, A., Cantlay, B. K., Capasso, G., Caproni, A., Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R., Caraveo, P., Caroff, S., Carosi, A., Carosi, R., Carquin, E., Carrasco, M. -S., Cassol, F., Castaldini, L., Castrejon, N., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Cerasole, D., Cerruti, M., Chadwick, P. M., Chaty, S., Chen, A. W., Chernyakova, M., Chiavassa, A., Chudoba, J., Chytka, L., Cicciari, G. M., Cifuentes, A., Araujo, C. H. Coimbra, Colapietro, M., Conforti, V., Conte, F., Contreras, J. L., Costa, A., Costantini, H., Cotter, G., Cristofari, P., Cuevas, O., Curtis-Ginsberg, Z., D'Amico, G., D'Ammando, F., Dai, S., Dalchenko, M., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., de Lavergne, M. de Bony, De Caprio, V., Pino, E. M. de Gouveia Dal, De Lotto, B., De Lucia, M., de Menezes, R., de Naurois, M., de Souza, V., del Peral, L., del Valle, M. V., Giler, A. G. Delgado, Mengual, J. Delgado, Delgado, C., Dell'aiera, M., della Volpe, D., Depaoli, D., Di Girolamo, T., Di Piano, A., Di Pierro, F., Di Tria, R., Di Venere, L., Díaz, C., Diebold, S., Dinesh, A., Djuvsland, J., Dominik, R. M., Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Dörner, J., Doro, M., Dournaux, J. -L., Duangchan, C., Dubos, C., Ducci, L., Dwarkadas, V. V., Ebr, J., Eckner, C., Egberts, K., Einecke, S., Elsässer, D., Emery, G., Errando, M., Escanuela, C., Escarate, P., Godoy, M. Escobar, Escudero, J., Esposito, P., Ettori, S., Falceta-Goncalves, D., Fedorova, E., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Ferrand, G., Ferrarotto, F., Fiandrini, E., Fiasson, A., Filipovic, M., Fioretti, V., Fiori, M., Foffano, L., Guiteras, L. Font, Fontaine, G., Fröse, S., Fukazawa, Y., Fukui, Y., Furniss, A., Galanti, G., Galaz, G., Galelli, C., Gallozzi, S., Gammaldi, V., Garczarczyk, M., Gasbarra, C., Gasparrini, D., Ghalumyan, A., Gianotti, F., Giarrusso, M., Paiva, J. G. Giesbrecht Formiga, Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Giuffrida, R., Glicenstein, J. -F., Glombitza, J., Goldoni, P., González, J. M., González, M. M., Coelho, J. Goulart, Gradetzke, T., Granot, J., Grasso, D., Grau, R., Gréaux, L., Green, D., Green, J. G., Grolleron, G., Guedes, L. M. V., Gueta, O., Hackfeld, J., Hadasch, D., Hamal, P., Hanlon, W., Hara, S., Harvey, V. M., Hassan, T., Hayashi, K., Heß, B., Heckmann, L., Heller, M., Cadena, S. Hernández, Hervet, O., Hinton, J., Hiroshima, N., Hnatyk, B., Hnatyk, R., Hofmann, W., Holder, J., Horan, D., Horvath, P., Hovatta, T., Hrabovsky, M., Hrupec, D., Iarlori, M., Inada, T., Incardona, F., Inoue, S., Inoue, Y., Iocco, F., Iori, M., Ishio, K., Jamrozy, M., Janecek, P., Jankowsky, F., Jean, P., Quiles, J. Jimenez, Jin, W., Juramy-Gilles, C., Jurysek, J., Kagaya, M., Kalekin, O., Karas, V., Katagiri, H., Kataoka, J., Kaufmann, S., Kazanas, D., Kerszberg, D., Kieda, D. B., Kleiner, T., Kluge, G., Kobayashi, Y., Kohri, K., Komin, N., Kornecki, P., Kosack, K., Kowal, G., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., La Barbera, A., La Palombara, N., Láinez, M., Lamastra, A., Lapington, J., Laporte, P., Lazarević, S., Lazendic-Galloway, J., Lemoine-Goumard, M., Lenain, J. -P., Leone, F., Leonora, E., Leto, G., Lindfors, E., Linhoff, M., Liodakis, I., Lipniacka, A., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Bahilo, J. Lozano, Luque-Escamilla, P. L., Macias, O., Majumdar, P., Mallamaci, M., Malyshev, D., Mandat, D., Manicò, G., Mariotti, M., Márquez, I., Marquez, P., Marsella, G., Martí, J., Martínez, G. A., Martínez, M., Martinez, O., Marty, C., Mas-Aguilar, A., Mastropietro, M., Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mestre, E., Meunier, J. -L., Meyer, D. M. -A., Meyer, M., Miceli, D., Miceli, M., Michailidis, M., Michałowski, J., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mitchell, A., Mizote, M., Mizuno, T., Moderski, R., Molero, M., Molfese, C., Molina, E., Montaruli, T., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Morselli, A., Moulin, E., Zamanillo, V. Moya, Munari, K., Murach, T., Muraczewski, A., Muraishi, H., Nakamori, T., Nayak, A., Nemmen, R., Neto, J. P., Nickel, L., Niemiec, J., Nieto, D., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nikołajuk, M., Nikolić, L., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nosek, D., Novotny, V., Nozaki, S., Ohishi, M., Ohtani, Y., Okumura, A., Olive, J. -F., Ong, R. A., Orienti, M., Orito, R., Orlandini, M., Orlando, E., Orlando, S., Ostrowski, M., Otero-Santos, J., Oya, I., Pagano, I., Pagliaro, A., Palatiello, M., Panebianco, G., Paneque, D., Pantaleo, F. R., Paredes, J. M., Parmiggiani, N., Patricelli, B., Pe'er, A., Pech, M., Pecimotika, M., Pensec, U., Peresano, M., Pérez-Romero, J., Persic, M., Peters, K. P., Petruk, O., Piano, G., Pierre, E., Pietropaolo, E., Pihet, M., Pinchbeck, L., Pirola, G., Pittori, C., Plard, C., Podobnik, F., Pohl, M., Pollet, V., Ponti, G., Prandini, E., Principe, G., Priyadarshi, C., Produit, N., Prouza, M., Pueschel, E., Pühlhofer, G., Pumo, M. L., Queiroz, F., Quirrenbach, A., Rainò, S., Rando, R., Razzaque, S., Regeard, M., Reimer, A., Reimer, O., Reisenegger, A., Rhode, W., Ribeiro, D., Ribó, M., Ricci, C., Richtler, T., Rico, J., Rieger, F., Riitano, L., Rizi, V., Roache, E., Fernandez, G. Rodriguez, Frías, M. D. Rodríguez, Rodríguez-Vázquez, J. J., Romano, P., Romeo, G., Rosado, J., de Leon, A. Rosales, Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Ruiter, A. J., Rulten, C. B., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Saito, T., Salzmann, H., Sánchez-Conde, M., Sandaker, H., Sangiorgi, P., Sano, H., Santander, M., Santos-Lima, R., Sapienza, V., Šarić, T., Sarkar, A., Sarkar, S., Saturni, F. G., Savarese, S., Scherer, A., Schiavone, F., Schipani, P., Schleicher, B., Schovanek, P., Schubert, J. L., Schwanke, U., Arroyo, M. Seglar, Seitenzahl, I. R., Sergijenko, O., Servillat, M., Siegert, T., Siejkowski, H., Siqueira, C., Sliusar, V., Slowikowska, A., Sol, H., Spencer, S. T., Spiga, D., Stamerra, A., Stanič, S., Starecki, T., Starling, R., Stawarz, Ł., Steppa, C., Hatlen, E. Sæther, Stolarczyk, T., Strišković, J., Suda, Y., Świerk, P., Tajima, H., Tak, D., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Tavernier, T., Tejedor, L. A., Terauchi, K., Teshima, M., Testa, V., Tian, W. W., Tibaldo, L., Tibolla, O., Peixoto, C. J. Todero, Torradeflot, F., Torres, D. F., Tosti, G., Tothill, N., Toussenel, F., Tramacere, A., Travnicek, P., Tripodo, G., Trois, A., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Vaclavek, L., Vacula, M., Vallania, P., Vallés, R., van Eldik, C., van Scherpenberg, J., Vandenbroucke, J., Vassiliev, V., Acosta, M. Vázquez, Vecchi, M., Ventura, S., Vercellone, S., Verna, G., Viana, A., Viaux, N., Vigliano, A., Vignatti, J., Vigorito, C. F., Villanueva, J., Visentin, E., Vitale, V., Vodeb, V., Voisin, V., Voitsekhovskyi, V., Vorobiov, S., Voutsinas, G., Vovk, I., Vuillaume, T., Wagner, S. J., Walter, R., White, M., White, R., Wierzcholska, A., Will, M., Williams, D. A., Wohlleben, F., Wolter, A., Yamamoto, T., Yang, L., Yoshida, T., Yoshikoshi, T., Zaharijas, G., Zampieri, L., Sanchez, R. Zanmar, Zavrtanik, D., Zavrtanik, M., Zdziarski, A. A., Zech, A., Zhang, W., Zhdanov, V. I., Ziętara, K., Živec, M., and Zuriaga-Puig, J.
Subjects: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract: Monochromatic gamma-ray signals constitute a potential smoking gun signature for annihilating or decaying dark matter particles that could relatively easily be distinguished from astrophysical or instrumental backgrounds. We provide an updated assessment of the sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) to such signals, based on observations of the Galactic centre region as well as of selected dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We find that current limits and detection prospects for dark matter masses above 300 GeV will be significantly improved, by up to an order of magnitude in the multi-TeV range. This demonstrates that CTA will set a new standard for gamma-ray astronomy also in this respect, as the world's largest and most sensitive high-energy gamma-ray observatory, in particular due to its exquisite energy resolution at TeV energies and the adopted observational strategy focussing on regions with large dark matter densities. Throughout our analysis, we use up-to-date instrument response functions, and we thoroughly model the effect of instrumental systematic uncertainties in our statistical treatment. We further present results for other potential signatures with sharp spectral features, e.g.~box-shaped spectra, that would likewise very clearly point to a particle dark matter origin., Comment: 44 pages JCAP style (excluding author list and references), 19 figures; minor changes to match published version
Published: 2024
Full Text: View/download PDF

7. The variability patterns of the TeV blazar PG 1553+113 from a decade of MAGIC and multi-band observations

Author: MAGIC Collaboration, Abe, H., Abe, S., Abhir, J., Acciari, V. A., Agudo, I., Aniello, T., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Arcaro, C., Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., Baquero, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Batković, I., Baxter, J., González, J. Becerra, Bernardini, E., Bernete, J., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Burelli, I., Busetto, G., Campoy-Ordaz, A., Carosi, A., Carosi, R., Carretero-Castrillo, M., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Chai, Y., Cifuentes, A., Cikota, S., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Del Popolo, A., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Emery, G., Escudero, J., Fariña, L., Fattorini, A., Foffano, L., Font, L., Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., López, R. J. García, Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Paiva, J. G. Giesbrecht, Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Grau, R., Green, J. G., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Heckmann, L., Herrera, J., Hovatta, T., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Imazawa, R., Inada, T., Iotov, R., Ishio, K., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jormanainen, J., Kerszberg, D., Kluge, G. W., Kobayashi, Y., Kouch, P. M., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lezáun, M. Láinez, Lamastra, A., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Liodakis, I., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Lorini, A., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Maneva, G., Mang, N., Manganaro, M., Mannheim, K., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Martínez-Chicharro, M., Mas-Aguilar, A., Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., González, M. Molero, Molina, E., Mondal, H. A., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Nakamori, T., Nanci, C., Neustroev, V., Nigro, C., Nikolić, L., Nilsson, K., Nishijima, K., Ekoume, T. Njoh, Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Okumura, A., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavlović, D., Persic, M., Pihet, M., Pirola, G., Podobnik, F., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Principe, G., Priyadarshi, C., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schmuckermaier, F., Schubert, J. L., Schweizer, T., Sciaccaluga, A., Sitarek, J., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strišković, J., Strom, D., Suda, Y., Suutarinen, S., Tajima, H., Takeishi, R., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terauchi, K., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Tosti, L., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Viale, I., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Walter, R., Wunderlich, C., Yamamoto, T., collaborators, MWL, Jermak, H., Steele, I. A., Smith, P. S., Blinov, D., Raiteri, C. M., Villata, M., Mirzaqulov, D. O., Kurtanidze, S. O., Carosati, D., Savchenko, S. S., Acosta-Pulido, J. A., Borman, G. A., Bozhilov, V., Carnerero, M. I., Chigladze, R. A., Damljanovic, G., Ehgamberdiev, S. A., Feige, M., Grishina, T. S., Gupta, A. C., Hagen-Thorn, V. A., Ibryamov, S., Ivanidze, R. Z., Jorstad, S. G., Kania, J., Kimeridze, G. N., Kopatskaya, E. N., Kopp, M., Kunkel, L., Kurtanidze, O. M., Larionov, V. M., Larionova, E. G., Larionova, L. V., Lorey, C., Marchini, A., Marscher, A. P., Minev, M., Morozova, D. A., Nikolashvili, M. G., Ovcharov, E., Reinhart, D., Sadun, A. C., Scherbantin, A., Schneider, L., Semkov, E., Sigua, L. A., Steineke, R., Troitskaya, Yu. V., Troitskiy, I. S., Valcheva, A., Vasilyev, A. A., Vince, O., Zaharieva, E., Zottmann, N., Kiehlmann, S., Readhead, A., Max-Moerbeck, W., Reeves, R. A., Sandrinelli, A., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Giroletti, M., Righini, S., Marchili, N., Patricelli, B., Ghirlanda, G., and Lico, R.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: PG 1553+113 is one of the few blazars with a convincing quasi-periodic emission in the gamma-ray band. The source is also a very high-energy (VHE; >100 GeV) gamma-ray emitter. To better understand its properties and identify the underlying physical processes driving its variability, the MAGIC Collaboration initiated a multiyear, multiwavelength monitoring campaign in 2015 involving the OVRO 40-m and Medicina radio telescopes, REM, KVA, and the MAGIC telescopes, Swift and Fermi satellites, and the WEBT network. The analysis presented in this paper uses data until 2017 and focuses on the characterization of the variability. The gamma-ray data show a (hint of a) periodic signal compatible with literature, but the X-ray and VHE gamma-ray data do not show statistical evidence for a periodic signal. In other bands, the data are compatible with the gamma-ray period, but with a relatively high p-value. The complex connection between the low and high-energy emission and the non-monochromatic modulation and changes in flux suggests that a simple one-zone model is unable to explain all the variability. Instead, a model including a periodic component along with multiple emission zones is required., Comment: Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 19 pages, 9 figures. Corresponding authors: Elisa Prandini, Antonio Stamerra, Talvikki Hovatta
Published: 2024
Full Text: View/download PDF

8. Unprecedented extreme high-frequency radio variability in early-stage active galactic nuclei

Author: Järvelä, E., Savolainen, T., Berton, M., Lähteenmäki, A., Kiehlmann, S., Hovatta, T., Varglund, I., Readhead, A. C. S., Tornikoski, M., Max-Moerback, W., Reeves, R. A., and Suutarinen, S.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: We report on the discovery of one of the most extreme cases of high-frequency radio variability ever measured in active galactic nuclei (AGN), observed on timescales of days and exhibiting variability amplitudes of three to four orders of magnitude. These sources, all radio-weak narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxies, were discovered some years ago at Aalto University Mets\"ahovi Radio Observatory (MRO) based on recurring flaring at 37 GHz, strongly indicating the presence of relativistic jets. In subsequent observations with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA) at 1.6, 5.2, and 9.0~GHz no signs of jets were seen. To determine the cause of their extraordinary behaviour, we observed them with the JVLA at 10, 15, 22, 33, and 45 GHz, and with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 15 GHz. These observations were complemented with single-dish monitoring at 37 GHz at MRO, and at 15 GHz at Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO). Intriguingly, all but one source either have a steep radio spectrum up to 45 GHz, or were not detected at all. Based on the 37 GHz data the timescales of the radio flares are a few days, and the derived variability brightness temperatures and variability Doppler factors comparable to those seen in blazars. We discuss alternative explanations for their extreme behaviour, but so far no definite conclusions can be made. These sources exhibit radio variability at a level rarely, if ever, seen in AGN. They might represent a new type of jetted AGN, or a new variability phenomenon, and thus deserve our continued attention., Comment: 31 pages, 37 figures, submitted to MNRAS
Published: 2023

9. Multi-wavelength observations of the lensed quasar PKS 1830$-$211 during the 2019 $\gamma$-ray flare

Author: Vercellone, S., Donnarumma, I., Pittori, C., Capitanio, F., De Rosa, A., Di Gesu, L., Kiehlmann, S., Iacolina, M. N., Pellizzoni, P. A., Egron, E., Pacciani, L., Piano, G., Puccetti, S., Righini, S., Valente, G., Verrecchia, F., Vittorini, V., Tavani, M., Brocato, E., Chen, A. W., Hovatta, T., Melis, A., Max-Moerbeck, W., Perrodin, D., Pilia, M., Pili, M., Readhead, A. C. S., Reeves, R., Ridolfi, A., Vitali, F., Bulgarelli, A., Cattaneo, P. W., Lucarelli, F., Morselli, A., and Trois, A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: PKS 1830$-$211 is a $\gamma$-ray emitting, high-redshift (z $= 2.507 \pm 0.002$), lensed flat-spectrum radio quasar. During the period mid-February to mid-April 2019, this source underwent a series of strong $\gamma$-ray flares that were detected by both AGILE-GRID and Fermi-LAT, reaching a maximum $\gamma$-ray flux of $F_{\rm E>100 MeV}\approx 2.3\times10^{-5}$ ph cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. Here we report on a coordinated campaign from both on-ground (Medicina, OVRO, REM, SRT) and orbiting facilities (AGILE, Fermi, INTEGRAL, NuSTAR, Swift, Chandra), with the aim of investigating the multi-wavelength properties of PKS 1830$-$211 through nearly simultaneous observations presented here for the first time. We find a possible break in the radio spectra in different epochs above 15 GHz, and a clear maximum of the 15 GHz data approximately 110 days after the $\gamma$-ray main activity periods. The spectral energy distribution shows a very pronounced Compton dominance (> 200) which challenges the canonical one-component emission model. Therefore we propose that the cooled electrons of the first component are re-accelerated to a second component by, e.g., kink or tearing instability during the $\gamma$-ray flaring periods. We also note that PKS 1830$-$211 could be a promising candidate for future observations with both Compton satellites (e.g., e-ASTROGAM) and Cherenkov arrays (CTAO) which will help, thanks to their improved sensitivity, in extending the data availability in energy bands currently uncovered., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 16 pages, 18 figures, 12 tables
Published: 2023

10. A Kpc-scale Radio Polarization Study of PG BL Lacs with the uGMRT

Author: Baghel, Janhavi, Kharb, P., Hovatta, T., Gulati, S., Lindfors, E., and S, Silpa
Subjects: Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We present here uGMRT band 4 (~650MHz) polarization images of 8 BL~Lac objects belonging to the Palomar-Green (PG) `blazar' sample. A large fraction of the sources (~63%) reveal core-halo radio structures with most of the polarization detected in the inner core-jet regions. PG1101+385 and PG2254+075 exhibit a `spine-sheath structure' in polarization. The core-halo and `spine-sheath' structures are consistent with the Unified Scheme suggestion that BL~Lacs are the pole-on beamed counterparts of Fanaroff-Riley (FR) type I radio galaxies. PG1418+546 and PG0851+203 (OJ287) show the presence of terminal hotspots similar to FR type II radio galaxies. They were also found to be low-spectrally peaked BL Lacs, supportive of the `blazar envelope' scenario for BL~Lacs and quasars. Fractional polarization ranges from 1-13% in the cores and 2-26% in the inner jets/lobes of the sample BL Lacs. Compared to the varied radio morphology of quasars from the PG `blazar' sample, the BL~Lacs appear to be less diverse. A comparison of the inferred core magnetic (B-) field structures on arcsec- (kpc-) scales w.r.t. the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) jet direction does not reveal any preferred orientation, suggesting that if large-scale ordered B-fields exist, they do so on scales smaller than probed by the current observations. However, the presence of polarized emission on arcsec-scales suggests that any mixing of thermal plasma with the synchrotron emitting plasma is insufficient to fully depolarize the emission via the internal depolarization process., Comment: 17 pages; 12 figures; MNRAS accepted
Published: 2023

11. Multi-year characterisation of the broad-band emission from the intermittent extreme BL Lac 1ES~2344+514

Author: Abe, H., Abe, S., Acciari, V. A., Agudo, I., Aniello, T., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Arcaro, C., Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., Baquero, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Batković, I., Baxter, J., González, J. Becerra, Bernardini, E., Bernete, J., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bošjak, Ž, Burelli, I., Busetto, G., Campoy-Ordaz, A., Carosi, A., Carosi, R., Carretero-Castrillo, M., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Chai, Y., Cifuentes, A., Cikota, S., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Ammando, F., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Del Popolo, A., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Prester, D. Dominis, Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Emery, G., Escudero, J., Fariña, L., Fattorini, A., Foffano, L., Font, L., Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., López, R. J. García, Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Paiva, J. G. Giesbrecht, Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Grau, R., Green, J. G., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Heckmann, L., Herrera, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Imazawa, R., Inada, T., Iotov, R., Ishio, K., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jormanainen, J., Kerszberg, D., Kluge, G. W., Kobayashi, Y., Kouch, P. M., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lezáun, M. Láinez, Lamastra, A., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Linhoff, L., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Lorini, A., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Maneva, G., Mang, N., Manganaro, M., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Martínez-Chicharro, M., Mas-Aguilar, A., Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., González, M. Molero, Molina, E., Mondal, H. A., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Nakamori, T., Nanci, C., Neustroev, V., Nigro, C., Nikolić, L., Nishijima, K., Ekoume, T. Njoh, Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Okumura, A., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavlović, D., Persic, M., Pihet, M., Pirola, G., Podobnik, F., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Principe, G., Priyadarshi, C., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schmuckermaier, F., Schubert, J. L., Schweizer, T., Sciaccaluga, A., Sitarek, J., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strišović, J., Strom, D., Suda, Y., Tajima, H., Takeishi, R., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terauchi, K., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Tosti, L., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Viale, I., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Walter, R., Wunderlich, C., Leto, T. Yamamoto M. Perri F. Verrecchia C., Das, S., Chatterjee, R., Raiteri, C. M., Villata, M., Semkov, E., Ibryamov, S., Bachev, R., Strigachev, A., Damljanovic, G., Vince, O., Jovanovic, M. D., Stojanovic, M., Larionov, V. M., Grishina, T. S., Kopatskaya, E. N., Larionova, E. G., Morozova, D. A., Savchenko, S. S., Troitskiy, I. S., Troitskaya, Y. V., Vasilyev, A. A., Chen, W. P., Hou, W. J., Lin, C. S., Tsai, A., Jorstad, S. G., Weaver, Z. R., Acosta-Pulido, J. A., Carnerero, M. I., Carosati, D., Kurtanidze, S. O., Kurtanidze, O. M., Jordan, B., Ivanidze, R. Z., Gazeas, K., Vrontaki, K., Hovatta, T., Liodakis, I., Readhead, A. C. S., Kiehlmann, S., Zheng, W., and Filippenko, A. V.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The BL Lac 1ES 2344+514 is known for temporary extreme properties (e.g., a shift of the synchrotron SED peak energy $\nu_{synch,p}$ above 1keV). While those extreme states were so far observed only during high flux levels, additional multi-year observing campaigns are required to achieve a coherent picture. Here, we report the longest investigation of the source from radio to VHE performed so far, focusing on a systematic characterisation of the intermittent extreme states. While our results confirm that 1ES 2344+514 typically exhibits $\nu_{synch,p}>$1keV during elevated flux periods, we also find periods where the extreme state coincides with low flux activity. A strong spectral variability thus happens in the quiescent state, and is likely caused by an increase of the electron acceleration efficiency without a change in the electron injection luminosity. We also report a strong X-ray flare (among the brightest for 1ES 2344+514) without a significant shift of $\nu_{synch,p}$. During this particular flare, the X-ray spectrum is among the softest of the campaign. It unveils complexity in the spectral evolution, where the common harder-when-brighter trend observed in BL Lacs is violated. During a low and hard X-ray state, we find an excess of the UV flux with respect to an extrapolation of the X-ray spectrum to lower energies. This UV excess implies that at least two regions contribute significantly to the infrared/optical/ultraviolet/X-ray emission. Using the simultaneous MAGIC, XMM-Newton, NuSTAR, and AstroSat observations, we argue that a region possibly associated with the 10 GHz radio core may explain such an excess. Finally, we investigate a VHE flare, showing an absence of simultaneous variability in the 0.3-2keV band. Using a time-dependent leptonic modelling, we show that this behaviour, in contradiction to single-zone scenarios, can instead be explained by a two-component model., Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Published: 2023
Full Text: View/download PDF

12. Bright blazar flares with CTA

Author: Cerruti, M., Finke, J., Grolleron, G., Lenain, J. P., Hovatta, T., Joshi, M., Lindfors, E., Morris, P., Petropoulou, M., Romano, P., Vercellone, S., and Zacharias, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The TeV extragalactic sky is dominated by blazars, radio-loud active galactic nuclei with a relativistic jet pointing towards the Earth. Blazars show variability that can be quite exceptional both in terms of flux (orders of magnitude of brightening) and time (down to the minute timescale). This bright flaring activity contains key information on the physics of particle acceleration and photon production in the emitting region, as well as the structure and physical properties of the jet itself. The TeV band is accessed from the ground by Cherenkov telescopes that image the pair cascade triggered by the interaction of the gamma ray with the Earth's atmosphere. The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) represents the upcoming generation of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, with a significantly higher sensitivity and larger energy coverage with respect to current instruments. It will thus provide us with unprecedented statistics on blazar light-curves and spectra. In this contribution we present the results from realistic simulations of CTA observations of bright blazar flares, taking as input state-of-the-art numerical simulations of blazar emission models and including all relevant observational constraints., Comment: Presented at the 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2023), 2023 (arXiv:2309.08219)
Published: 2023

13. Searches for neutrinos in the direction of radio-bright blazars with the ANTARES telescope

Author: ANTARES Collaboration, Albert, A., Alves, S., André, M., Ardid, M., Ardid, S., Aubert, J. J., Aublin, J, Baret, B., Basa, S., Becherini, Y., Belhorma, B., Bendahman, M., Benfenati, F., Bertin, V., Biagi, S., Bissinger, M., Boumaaza, J., Bouta, M., Bouwhuis, M. C., Brânzaş, H., Bruijn, R., Brunner, J., Busto, J., Caiffi, B., Calvo, D., Campion, S., Capone, A., Caramete, L., Carenini, F., Carr, J., Carretero, V., Celli, S., Cerisy, L., Chabab, M., Moursli, R. Cherkaoui El, Chiarusi, T., Circella, M., Coelho, J. A. B., Coleiro, A., Coniglione, R., Coyle, P., Creusot, A., Cruz, A. S. M., Díaz, A. F., De Martino, B., Distefano, C., Di Palma, I., Domi, A., Donzaud, C., Dornic, D., Drouhin, D., Eberl, T., van Eeden, T., van Eijk, D., Hedri, S. El, Khayati, N. El, Enzenhöfer, A., Fermani, P., Ferrara, G., Filippini, F., Fusco, L., Gagliardini, S., García, J., Oliver, C. Gatius, Gay, P., Geißelbrecht, N., Glotin, H., Gozzini, R., Ruiz, R. Gracia, Graf, K., Guidi, C., Haegel, L., Hallmann, S., van Haren, H., Heijboer, A. J., Hello, Y., Hernández-Rey, J. J., Hößl, J., Hofestädt, J., Huang, F., Illuminati, G., James, C. W., Jisse-Jung, B., de Jong, M., de Jong, P., Kadler, M., Kalekin, O., Katz, U., Kouchner, A., Kovalev, Y. A, Kovalev, Y. Y, Kreykenbohm, I., Kulikovskiy, V., Lahmann, R., Lamoureux, M., Lazo, A., Lefèvre, D., Leonora, E., Levi, G., Stum, S. Le, Lopez-Coto, D., Loucatos, S., Maderer, L., Manczak, J., Marcelin, M., Margiotta, A., Marinelli, A., Martínez-Mora, J. A., Migliozzi, P., Moussa, A., Muller, R., Navas, S., Nezri, E., Fearraigh, B. Ó, Oukacha, E., Păun, A., Păvălaş, G. E., Peña-Martínez, S., Perrin-Terrin, M., Pestel, V., Piattelli, P., Plavin, A., Poirè, C., Popa, V., Pradier, T., Pushkarev, A., Randazzo, N., Real, D., Reck, S., Riccobene, G., Romanov, A., Sánchez-Losa, A., Saina, A., Greus, F. Salesa, Samtleben, D. F. E., Sanguineti, M., Sapienza, P., Schnabel, J., Schumann, J., Schüssler, F., Seneca, J., Spurio, M., Stolarczyk, Th., Taiuti, M., Tayalati, Y., Tingay, S. J., Troitsky, S., Vallage, B., Vannoye, G., Van Elewyck, V., Viola, S., Vivolo, D., Wilms, J., Zavatarelli, S., Zegarelli, A., Zornoza, J. D., Zúñiga, J., Collaboration, OVRO, Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Liodakis, I., Pavlidou, V., and Readhead, A. C. S
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Active galaxies, especially blazars, are among the most promising neutrino source candidates. To date, ANTARES searches for these objects considered GeV-TeV $\gamma$-ray bright blazars. Here, a statistically complete radio-bright blazar sample is used as the target for searches of origins of neutrinos collected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope over 13 years of operation. The hypothesis of a neutrino-blazar directional correlation is tested by pair counting and by a complementary likelihood-based approach. The resulting post-trial $p$-value is $3.0\%$ ($2.2\sigma$ in the two-sided convention), possibly indicating a correlation. Additionally, a time-dependent analysis is performed to search for temporal clustering of neutrino candidates as a mean of detecting neutrino flares in blazars. None of the investigated sources alone reaches a significant flare detection level. However, the presence of 18 sources with a pre-trial significance above $3\sigma$ indicates a $p=1.4\%$ ($2.5\sigma$ in the two-sided convention) detection of a time-variable neutrino flux. An \textit{a posteriori} investigation reveals an intriguing temporal coincidence of neutrino, radio, and $\gamma$-ray flares of the J0242+1101 blazar at a $p=0.5\%$ ($2.9\sigma$ in the two-sided convention) level. Altogether, the results presented here suggest a possible connection of neutrino candidates detected by the ANTARES telescope with radio-bright blazars.
Published: 2023
Full Text: View/download PDF

14. Quantitative comparisons of VHE gamma-ray blazar flares with relativistic reconnection models

Author: Jormanainen, J., Hovatta, T., Christie, I. M., Lindfors, E., Petropoulou, M., and Liodakis, I.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The origin of extremely fast variability is one of the long-standing questions in the gamma-ray astronomy of blazars. While many models explain the slower, lower energy variability, they cannot easily account for such fast flares reaching hour-to-minute time scales. Magnetic reconnection, a process where magnetic energy is converted to the acceleration of relativistic particles in the reconnection layer, is a candidate solution to this problem. In this work, we employ state-of-the-art particle-in-cell simulations in a statistical comparison with observations of a flaring episode of a well-known blazar, Mrk 421, at very high energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV). We tested the predictions of our model by generating simulated VHE light curves that we compared quantitatively with methods that we have developed for a precise evaluation of theoretical and observed data. With our analysis, we can constrain the parameter space of the model, such as the magnetic field strength of the unreconnected plasma, viewing angle and the reconnection layer orientation in the blazar jet. Our analysis favours parameter spaces with magnetic field strength 0.1 G, rather large viewing angles (6-8 degrees), and misaligned layer angles, offering a strong candidate explanation for the Doppler crisis often observed in the jets of high synchrotron peaking blazars., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A
Published: 2023
Full Text: View/download PDF

15. The RoboPol sample of optical polarimetric standards

Author: Blinov, D., Maharana, S., Bouzelou, F., Casadio, C., Gjerløw, E., Jormanainen, J., Kiehlmann, S., Kypriotakis, J. A., Liodakis, I., Mandarakas, N., Markopoulioti, L., Panopoulou, G. V., Pelgrims, V., Pouliasi, A., Romanopoulos, S., Skalidis, R., Anche, R. M., Angelakis, E., Antoniadis, J., Medhi, B. J., Hovatta, T., Kus, A., Kylafis, N., Mahabal, A., Myserlis, I., Paleologou, E., Papadakis, I., Pavlidou, V., Papamastorakis, I., Pearson, T. J., Potter, S. B., Ramaprakash, A. N., Readhead, A. C. S., Reig, P., Słowikowska, A., Tassis, K., and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract: Optical polarimeters are typically calibrated using measurements of stars with known and stable polarization parameters. However, there is a lack of such stars available across the sky. Many of the currently available standards are not suitable for medium and large telescopes due to their high brightness. Moreover, as we find, some of the used polarimetric standards are in fact variable or have polarization parameters that differ from their cataloged values. Our goal is to establish a sample of stable standards suitable for calibrating linear optical polarimeters with an accuracy down to $10^{-3}$ in fractional polarization. For five years, we have been running a monitoring campaign of a sample of standard candidates comprised of 107 stars distributed across the northern sky. We analyzed the variability of the linear polarization of these stars, taking into account the non-Gaussian nature of fractional polarization measurements. For a subsample of nine stars, we also performed multiband polarization measurements. We created a new catalog of 65 stars (see Table 2) that are stable, have small uncertainties of measured polarimetric parameters, and can be used as calibrators of polarimeters at medium- and large-size telescopes.
Published: 2023
Full Text: View/download PDF

16. Probing AGN variability with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Author: Cangemi, F., Hovatta, T., Lindfors, E., Cerruti, M., Becerra-Gonzalez, J., Biteau, J., Boisson, C., Böttcher, M., Pino, E. de Gouveia Dal, Dorner, D., Grolleron, G., Lenain, J. -P., Manganaro, M., Max-Moerbeck, W., Morris, P., Nilsson, K., Reis, L. Passos, Romano, P., Sergijenko, O., Tavecchio, F., Vercellone, S., Wagner, S., and Zacharias, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Relativistic jets launched by Active Galactic Nuclei are among the most powerful particle accelerators in the Universe. The emission over the entire electromagnetic spectrum of these relativistic jets can be extremely variable with scales of variability from less than few minutes up to several years. These variability patterns, which can be very complex, contain information about the acceleration processes of the particles and the area(s) of emission. Thanks to its sensitivity, five-to twenty-times better than the current generation of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes depending on energy, the Cherenkov Telescope Array will be able to follow the emission from these objects with a very accurate time sampling and over a wide spectral coverage from 20 GeV to > 20 TeV and thus reveal the nature of the acceleration processes at work in these objects. We will show the first results of our lightcurve simulations and long-term behavior of AGN as will be observed by CTA, based on state-of-art particle acceleration models., Comment: Proceedings for Gamma 2022, 8 pages, 6 figures
Published: 2023

17. Long-term multi-wavelength study of 1ES 0647+250

Author: MAGIC Collaboration, Acciari, V. A., Aniello, T., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Arcaro, C., Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., Baquero, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batković, I., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bernardini, E., Bernardos, M., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bökenkamp, H., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Burelli, I., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Carretero-Castrillo, M., Ceribella, G., Chai, Y., Chilingarian, A., Cikota, S., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Del Popolo, A., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Espiñeira, E. Do Souto, Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Emery, G., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fariña, L., Fattorini, A., Font, L., Fruck, C., Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Paiva, J. G. Giesbrecht, Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinović, N., Green, J. G., Green, D., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Hassan, T., Heckmann, L., Herrera, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Inada, T., Iotov, R., Ishio, K., Iwamura, Y., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jormanainen, J., Kerszberg, D., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Linhoff, L., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Lorini, A., Lyard, E., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mangano, S., Mannheim, K., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Aguilar, A. Mas, Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Mićanović, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Mondal, H. A., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Nakamori, T., Nanci, C., Nava, L., Neustroev, V., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Nishijima, K., Ekoume, T. Njoh, Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletić, L., Persic, M., Pihet, M., Podobnik, F., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Principe, G., Priyadarshi, C., Puljak, I., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schmuckermaier, F., Schubert, J. L., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Sliusar, V., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strišković, J., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Surić, T., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Tosti, L., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Vanzo, G., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Viale, I., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Walter, R., Will, M., Wunderlich, C., Yamamoto, T., Zarić, D., Acosta-Pulido, J. A., D'Ammando, F., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Liodakis, I., Leto, C., Max-Moerbeck, W., Pacciani, L., Perri, M., Readhead, A. C. S., Reeves, R. A., and Verrecchia, F.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The BL Lac object 1ES 0647+250 is one of the few distant $\gamma$-ray emitting blazars detected at very high energies (VHE, $\gtrsim$100 GeV) during a non-flaring state. It was detected with the MAGIC telescopes during its low activity in the years 2009-2011, as well as during three flaring activities in the years 2014, 2019 and 2020, with the highest VHE flux in the latter epoch. An extensive multi-instrument data set was collected within several coordinated observing campaigns throughout these years. We aim to characterise the long-term multi-band flux variability of 1ES 0647+250, as well as its broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) during four distinct activity states selected in four different epochs, in order to constrain the physical parameters of the blazar emission region under certain assumptions. We evaluate the variability and correlation of the emission in the different energy bands with the fractional variability and the Z-transformed Discrete Correlation Function, as well as its spectral evolution in X-rays and $\gamma$ rays. Owing to the controversy in the redshift measurements of 1ES 0647+250 reported in the literature, we also estimate its distance in an indirect manner through the comparison of the GeV and TeV spectra from simultaneous observations with Fermi-LAT and MAGIC during the strongest flaring activity detected to date. Moreover, we interpret the SEDs from the four distinct activity states within the framework of one-component and two-component leptonic models, proposing specific scenarios that are able to reproduce the available multi-instrument data., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures. Accepted in A&A. Corresponding authors: Jorge Otero-Santos; Daniel Morcuende; Vandad Fallah Ramazani; Daniela Dorner; David Paneque (mailto: contact.magic@mpp.mpg.de)
Published: 2022
Full Text: View/download PDF

18. Multi-messenger characterization of Mrk 501 during historically low X-ray and $\gamma$-ray activity

Author: MAGIC collaboration, Abe, H., Abe, S., Acciari, V. A., Agudo, I., Aniello, T., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Arcaro, C., Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., Baquero, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batković, I., Baxter, J., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bernardini, E., Bernardos, M., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Burelli, I., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Carretero-Castrillo, M., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Ceribella, G., Chai, Y., Chilingarian, A., Cikota, S., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Del Popolo, A., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Espiñeira, E. Do Souto, Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Emery, G., Escudero, J., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fariña, L., Fattorini, A., Foffano, L., Font, L., Fruck, C., Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Paiva, J. G. Giesbrecht, Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinović, N., Grau, R., Green, D., Green, J. G., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Hassan, T., Heckmann, L., Herrera, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Imazawa, R., Inada, T., Iotov, R., Ishio, K., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jormanainen, J., Kerszberg, D., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Linhoff, L., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Lorini, A., Lyard, E., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Maneva, G., Mang, N., Manganaro, M., Mangano, S., Mannheim, K., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Mas-Aguilar, A., Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Mićanović, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Mondal, H. A., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Nakamori, T., Nanci, C., Nava, L., Neustroev, V., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Nishijima, K., Ekoume, T. Njoh, Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Okumura, A., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletić, L., Persic, M., Pihet, M., Pirola, G., Podobnik, F., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Principe, G., Priyadarshi, C., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schmuckermaier, F., Schubert, J. L., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Sliusar, V., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strišković, J., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Surić, T., Tajima, H., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terauchi, K., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Tosti, L., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Viale, I., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Walter, R., Will, M., Wunderlich, C., Yamamoto, T., Zarić, D., groups, Other, collaborations, Cerruti, M., Acosta-Pulido, J. A., Apolonio, G., Bachev, R., Baloković, M., Benítez, E., Björklund, I., Bozhilov, V., Brown, L. F., Bugg, A., Carbonell, W., Carnerero, M. I., Carosati, D., Casadio, C., Chamani, W., Chen, W. P., Chigladze, R. A., Damljanovic, G., Epps, K., Erkenov, A., Feige, M., Finke, J., Fuentes, A., Gazeas, K., Giroletti, M., Grishina, T. S., Gupta, A. C., Gurwell, M. A., Heidemann, E., Hiriart, D., Hou, W. J., Hovatta, T., Ibryamov, S., Joner, M. D., Jorstad, S. G., Kania, J., Kiehlmann, S., Kimeridze, G. N., Kopatskaya, E. N., Kopp, M., Korte, M., Kotas, B., Koyama, S., Kramer, J. A., Kunkel, L., Kurtanidze, S. O., Kurtanidze, O. M., Lähteenmäki, A., López, J. M., Larionov, V. M., Larionova, E. G., Larionova, L. V., Leto, C., Lorey, C., Mújica, R., Madejski, G. M., Marchili, N., Marscher, A. P., Minev, M., Modaressi, A., Morozova, D. A., Mufakharov, T., Myserlis, I., Nikiforova, A. A., Nikolashvili, M. G., Ovcharov, E., Perri, M., Raiteri, C. M., Readhead, A. C. S., Reimer, A., Reinhart, D., Righini, S., Rosenlehner, K., Sadun, A. C., Savchenko, S. S., Scherbantin, A., Schneider, L., Schoch, K., Seifert, D., Semkov, E., Sigua, L. A., Singh, C., Sola, P., Sotnikova, Y., Spencer, M., Steineke, R., Stojanovic, M., Strigachev, A., Tornikoski, M., Traianou, E., Tramacere, A., Troitskaya, Yu. V., Troitskiy, I. S., Trump, J. B., Tsai, A., Valcheva, A., Vasilyev, A. A., Verrecchia, F., Villata, M., Vince, O., Vrontaki, K., Weaver, Z. R., Zaharieva, E., and Zottmann, N.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We study the broadband emission of Mrk 501 using multi-wavelength observations from 2017 to 2020 performed with a multitude of instruments, involving, among others, MAGIC, Fermi-LAT, NuSTAR, Swift, GASP-WEBT, and OVRO. Mrk 501 showed an extremely low broadband activity, which may help to unravel its baseline emission. Nonetheless, significant flux variations are detected at all wavebands, with the highest occurring at X-rays and very-high-energy (VHE) $\gamma$-rays. A significant correlation ($>$3$\sigma$) between X-rays and VHE $\gamma$-rays is measured, supporting leptonic scenarios to explain the variable parts of the emission, also during low activity. This is further supported when we extend our data from 2008 to 2020, and identify, for the first time, significant correlations between Swift-XRT and Fermi-LAT. We additionally find correlations between high-energy $\gamma$-rays and radio, with the radio lagging by more than 100 days, placing the $\gamma$-ray emission zone upstream of the radio-bright regions in the jet. Furthermore, Mrk 501 showed a historically low activity in X-rays and VHE $\gamma$-rays from mid-2017 to mid-2019 with a stable VHE flux ($>$0.2 TeV) of 5% the emission of the Crab Nebula. The broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) of this 2-year-long low-state, the potential baseline emission of Mrk 501, can be characterized with one-zone leptonic models, and with (lepto)-hadronic models fulfilling neutrino flux constraints from IceCube. We explore the time evolution of the SED towards the low-state, revealing that the stable baseline emission may be ascribed to a standing shock, and the variable emission to an additional expanding or traveling shock., Comment: 55 pages, 30 figures, 14 tables, accepted by APJS. Corresponding authors are L. Heckmann, D. Paneque, S. Gasparyan, M. Cerruti, and N. Sahakyan
Published: 2022
Full Text: View/download PDF

19. Optical polarization reveals colliding stellar stream shocks in a tidal disruption event

Author: Liodakis, I., Koljonen, K. I. I., Blinov, D., Lindfors, E., Alexander, K. D., Hovatta, T., Berton, M., Hajela, A., Jormanainen, J., Kouroumpatzakis, K., Mandarakas, N., and Nilsson, K.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Supermassive black holes have been known to disrupt passing stars producing outbursts called Tidal Disruption Events offering a unique view on the early stages of accretion disk and jet formation. The advent of large scale optical time-domain surveys has significantly increased the number of known events and challenged our understanding of their dynamics and emission processes. Here, we present the linear polarization curve of the most polarized tidal disruption without any indication of contribution from a jet to the emission. Our observations demonstrate that optical TDE emission can be powered by tidal stream shocks., Comment: 36 pages, 7 figures, author's version of the paper accepted in Science
Published: 2022
Full Text: View/download PDF

20. The hunt for extraterrestrial high-energy neutrino counterparts

Author: Liodakis, I., Hovatta, T., Pavlidou, V., Readhead, A. C. S., Blandford, R. D., Kiehlmann, S., Lindfors, E., Max-Moerbeck, W., Pearson, T. J., and Petropoulou, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The origin of Petaelectronvolt (PeV) astrophysical neutrinos is fundamental to our understanding of the high-energy Universe. Apart from the technical challenges of operating detectors deep below ice, oceans, and lakes, the phenomenological challenges are even greater than those of gravitational waves; the sources are unknown, hard to predict, and we lack clear signatures. Neutrino astronomy therefore represents the greatest challenge faced by the astronomy and physics communities thus far. The possible neutrino sources range from accretion disks and tidal disruption events, to relativistic jets and galaxy clusters with blazar TXS~0506+056 the most compelling association thus far. Since that association, immense effort has been put into proving or disproving that jets are indeed neutrino emitters, but to no avail. By generating simulated neutrino counterpart samples, we explore the potential of detecting a significant correlation of neutrinos with jets from active galactic nuclei. We find that, given the existing challenges, even our best experiments could not have produced a $>3\sigma$ result. Larger programs over the next few years will be able to detect a significant correlation only if the brightest radio sources, rather than all jetted active galactic nuclei, are neutrino emitters. We discuss the necessary strategies required to steer future efforts into successful experiments., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, accepted for publication in A&A
Published: 2022
Full Text: View/download PDF

21. Investigating the blazar TXS 0506+056 through sharp multi-wavelength eyes during 2017-2019

Author: MAGIC Collaboration, Acciari, V. A., Aniello, T., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., Baquero, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batković, I., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bernardini, E., Bernardos, M., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bökenkamp, H., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Ceribella, G., Cerruti, M., Chai, Y., Chilingarian, A., Cikota, S., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Del Popolo, A., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Espiñeira, E. Do Souto, Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fariña, L., Fattorini, A., Font, L., Fruck, C., Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinović, N., Green, J. G., Green, D., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Hassan, T., Heckmann, L., Herrera, J., Hoang, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Inada, T., Iotov, R., Ishio, K., Iwamura, Y., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jormanainen, J., Jouvin, L., Kerszberg, D., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Linhoff, L., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Maggio, C., Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mannheim, K., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Aguilar, A. Mas, Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Mićanović, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Moretti, E., Nakamori, T., Nava, L., Neustroev, V., Rosillo, M. Nievas, Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletić, L., Peñil, P., Persic, M., Pihet, M., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Priyadarshi, C., Puljak, I., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schmuckermaier, F., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Šnidarić, I., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strišković, J., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Surić, T., Takahashi, M., Takeishi, R., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Tosti, L., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Vanzo, G., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Viale, I., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Will, M., Wunderlich, C., Yamamoto, T., Zarić, D., Collaboration, OVRO, Hodges, M., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Liodakis, I., Max-Moerbeck, W., Pearson, T. J., Readhead, A. C. S., Reeves, R. A., Collaboration, Metsähovi, Lähteenmaäki, A., Tornikoski, M., Tammi, J., D'Ammando, F., and Marchini, A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The blazar TXS 0506+056 got into the spotlight of the astrophysical community in September 2017, when a high-energy neutrino detected by IceCube (IceCube-170922A) was associated at the 3 $\sigma$ level to a $\gamma$-ray flare from this source. This multi-messenger photon-neutrino association remains, as per today, the most significant one ever observed. TXS 0506+056 was a poorly studied object before the IceCube-170922A event. To better characterize its broad-band emission, we organized a multi-wavelength campaign lasting 16 months (November 2017 to February 2019), covering the radio-band (Mets\"ahovi, OVRO), the optical/UV (ASAS-SN, KVA, REM, Swift/UVOT), the X-rays (Swift/XRT, NuSTAR), the high-energy $\gamma$ rays (Fermi/LAT) and the very-high-energy (VHE) $\gamma$ rays (MAGIC). In $\gamma$ rays, the behaviour of the source was significantly different from the 2017 one: MAGIC observations show the presence of flaring activity during December 2018, while the source only shows an excess at the 4$\sigma$ level during the rest of the campaign (74 hours of accumulated exposure); Fermi/LAT observations show several short (days-to-week timescale) flares, different from the long-term brightening of 2017. No significant flares are detected at lower energies. The radio light curve shows an increasing flux trend, not seen in other wavelengths. We model the multi-wavelength spectral energy distributions in a lepto-hadronic scenario, in which the hadronic emission emerges as Bethe-Heitler and pion-decay cascade in the X-rays and VHE $\gamma$ rays. According to the model presented here, the December 2018 $\gamma$-ray flare was connected to a neutrino emission that was too brief and not bright enough to be detected by current neutrino instruments., Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures; V2 to match published version, typo fixed
Published: 2022
Full Text: View/download PDF

22. New Tests of Millilensing in the Blazar PKS 1413+135

Author: Peirson, A. L., Liodakis, I., Readhead, A. C. S., Lister, M. L., Perlman, E. S., Aller, M. F., Blandford, R. D., Grainge, K. J. B., Green, D. A., Gurwell, M. A., Hodges, M. W., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Lähteenmäki, A., Max-Moerbeck, W., Mcaloone, T., O'Neill, S., Pavlidou, V., Pearson, T. J., Ravi, V., Reeves, R. A., Scott, P. F., Taylor, G. B., Titterington, D. J., Tornikoski, M., Vedantham, H. K., Wilkinson, P. N., Williams, D. T., and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Symmetric Achromatic Variability (SAV) is a rare form of radio variability in blazars that has been attributed to gravitational millilensing by a ~$10^2 - 10^5$ $M_\odot$ mass condensate. Four SAVs have been identified between 1980 and 2020 in the long-term radio monitoring data of the blazar PKS 1413+135. We show that all four can be fitted with the same, unchanging, gravitational lens model. If SAV is due to gravitational millilensing, PKS 1413+135 provides a unique system for studying active galactic nuclei with unprecedented microarcsecond resolution, as well as for studying the nature of the millilens itself. We discuss two possible candidates for the putative millilens: a giant molecular cloud hosted in the intervening edge-on spiral galaxy, and an undetected dwarf galaxy with a massive black hole. We find a significant dependence of SAV crossing time on frequency, which could indicate a fast shock moving in a slower underlying flow. We also find tentative evidence for a 989-day periodicity in the SAVs, which, if real, makes possible the prediction of future SAVs: the next three windows for possible SAVs begin in August 2022, May 2025, and February 2028., Comment: Accepted to ApJ
Published: 2022
Full Text: View/download PDF

23. Locating the $\gamma$-ray emitting region in the quasar 4C +01.28

Author: Rösch, F., Kadler, M., Ros, E., Gurwell, M., Hovatta, T., Kreter, M., MacDonald, N. R., and Readhead, A. C. S.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Determining the location of $\gamma$-ray emission in blazar jets is a challenging task. Pinpointing the exact location of $\gamma$-ray production within a relativistic jet can place strong constraints on our understanding of high-energy astrophysics and astroparticle physics. We present a study of the radio- and $\gamma$-bright flat-spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) 4C +01.28 (PKS B1055+018) in which we try to pinpoint the emission site of several prominent GeV flares. This source shows prominent high-amplitude broadband variability on time scales ranging from days to years. We combine high-resolution VLBI observations and multi-band radio light curves over a period of around nine years. We can associate two bright and compact newly ejected jet components with bright flares observed by the Fermi/LAT $\gamma$-ray telescope and at various radio frequencies. A cross-correlation analysis reveals the radio light curves systematically lag behind the $\gamma$-rays. In combination with the jet kinematics as measured by the VLBA, we use these cross-correlations to constrain a model in which the flares become observable at a given frequency when a plasma component passes through the region at which the bulk energy dissipation takes place at that frequency. We derive a lower limit of the location of the $\gamma$-ray emitting region in 4C +01.28 of several parsecs from the jet base, well beyond the expected extent of the broad-line region. This observational limit challenges blazar-emission models that rely on the broad-line region as a source of seed photons for inverse-Compton scattering., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, European VLBI Network Mini-Symposium and Users' Meeting (EVN2021), to be published in Proceedings of Science
Published: 2021

24. Multiwavelength study of the gravitationally lensed blazar QSO B0218+357 between 2016 and 2020

Author: MAGIC Collaboration, Acciari, V. A., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., Baquero, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batković, I., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bellizzi, L., Bernardini, E., Bernardos, M., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Ceribella, G., Cerruti, M., Chai, Y., Chilingarian, A., Cikota, S., Colak, S. M., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Espiñeira, E. Do Souto, Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fattorini, A., Ferrara, G., Fonseca, M. V., Font, L., Fruck, C., Fukami, S., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinović, N., Green, J. G., Green, D., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Heckmann, L., Herrera, J., Hoang, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Inada, T., Inoue, S., Ishio, K., Iwamura, Y., Jiménez, I., Jormanainen, J., Jouvin, L., Kajiwara, Y., Karjalainen, M., Kerszberg, D., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Maggio, C., Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mannheim, K., Maraschi, L., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Mazin, D., Menchiari, S., Mender, S., Mićanović, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Minev, M., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Moretti, E., Neustroev, V., Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletić, L., Peñil, P., Perennes, C., Persic, M., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Priyadarshi, C., Puljak, I., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Saha, L., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Šnidarić, I., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Surić, T., Takahashi, M., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Tosti, L., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., Ubach, S., van Scherpenberg, J., Vanzo, G., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Will, M., Wunderlich, C., Zarić, D., de Palma, F., D'Ammando, F., Barnacka, A., Sahu, D. K., Hodges, M., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Max-Moerbeck, W., Readhead, A. C. S., Reeves, R., Pearson, T. J., Lähteenmäki, A., Björklund, I., Tornikoski, M., Tammi, J., Suutarinen, S., Hada, K., and Niinuma, K.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: We report multiwavelength observations of the gravitationally lensed blazar QSO B0218+357 in 2016-2020. Optical, X-ray and GeV flares were detected. The contemporaneous MAGIC observations do not show significant very-high-energy (VHE, >= 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission. The lack of enhancement in radio emission measured by OVRO indicates the multi-zone nature of the emission from this object. We constrain the VHE duty cycle of the source to be < 16 2014-like flares per year (95% confidence). For the first time for this source, a broadband low-state SED is constructed with a deep exposure up to the VHE range. A flux upper limit on the low-state VHE gamma-ray emission of an order of magnitude below that of the 2014 flare is determined. The X-ray data are used to fit the column density of (8.10 +- 0.93 stat ) x 10^21 cm^-2 of the dust in the lensing galaxy. VLBI observations show a clear radio core and jet components in both lensed images, yet no significant movement of the components is seen. The radio measurements are used to model the source-lens-observer geometry and determine the magnifications and time delays for both components. The quiescent emission is modeled with the high-energy bump explained as a combination of synchrotron-self-Compton and external Compton emission from a region located outside of the broad line region. The bulk of the low-energy emission is explained as originating from a tens-of-parsecs scale jet., Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

25. The Unanticipated Phenomenology of the Blazar PKS~2131$-$021: A Unique Super-Massive Black Hole Binary Candidate

Author: O'Neill, S., Kiehlmann, S., Readhead, A. C. S., Aller, M. F., Blandford, R. D., Liodakis, I., Lister, M. L., Mróz, P., O'Dea, C. P., Pearson, T. J., Ravi, V., Vallisneri, M., Cleary, K. A., Graham, M. J., Grainge, K. J. B., Hodges, M. W., Hovatta, T., Lähteenmäki, A., Lamb, J. W., Lazio, T. J. W., Max-Moerbeck, W., Pavlidou, V., Prince, T. A., Reeves, R. A., Tornikoski, M., de la Para, P. Vergara, and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Most large galaxies host supermassive black holes in their nuclei and are subject to mergers, which can produce a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB), and hence periodic signatures due to orbital motion. We report unique periodic radio flux density variations in the blazar PKS~2131$-$021, which strongly suggest an SMBHB with an orbital separation of $\sim 0.001-0.01$ pc. Our 45.1-year radio light curve shows two epochs of strong sinusoidal variation with the same period and phase to within $<2\%$ and $\sim 10\%$, respectively, straddling a 20-year period when this variation was absent. Our simulated light curves accurately reproduce the ``red noise'' of this object, and Lomb-Scargle, weighted wavelet Z-transform, and least-squares sine wave analyses demonstrate conclusively, at the $4.6\sigma$ significance level, that the periodicity in this object is not due to random fluctuations in flux density. The observed period translates to $2.082\pm 0.003$ years in the rest frame at the $z=1.285$ redshift of PKS~2131$-$021. The periodic variation in PKS~2131$-$021 is remarkably sinusoidal. We present a model in which orbital motion, combined with the strong Doppler boosting of the approaching relativistic jet, produces a sine-wave modulation in the flux density which easily fits the observations. Given the rapidly-developing field of gravitational wave experiments with pulsar timing arrays, closer counterparts to PKS~2131$-$021 and searches using the techniques we have developed are strongly motivated. These results constitute a compelling demonstration that the phenomenology, not the theory, must provide the lead in this field., Comment: 24 pages, 13 figure, 3 Tables, accepted for publication in APJL
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

26. Confronting observations of VHE gamma-ray blazar flares with reconnection models

Author: Jormanainen, J., Hovatta, T., Lindfors, E., Christie, I., Petropoulou, M., and Liodakis, I.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Several models have been suggested to explain the fast gamma-ray variability observed in blazars, but its origin is still debated. One scenario is magnetic reconnection, a process that can efficiently convert magnetic energy to energy of relativistic particles accelerated in the reconnection layer. In our study, we compare results from state-of-the-art particle-in-cell simulations with observations of blazars at Very High Energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) gamma-rays. Our goal is to test our model predictions on fast gamma-ray variability with data and to constrain the parameter space of the model, such as the magnetic field strength of the unreconnected plasma and the reconnection layer orientation in the blazar jet. For this first comparison, we used the remarkably well-sampled VHE gamma-ray light curve of Mrk 421 observed with the MAGIC and VERITAS telescopes in 2013.The simulated VHE light curves were generated using the observable parameters of Mrk 421, such as the jet power, bulk Lorentz factor, and the jet viewing angle, and sampled as real data. Our results pave the way for future model-to-data comparison with next-generation Cherenkov telescopes, which will help further constrain the different variability models., Comment: To be published in the proceedings of 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference
Published: 2021

27. MOJAVE XIX: Brightness Temperatures and Intrinsic Properties of Blazar Jets

Author: Homan, D. C., Cohen, M. H., Hovatta, T., Kellermann, K. I., Kovalev, Y. Y., Lister, M. L., Popkov, A. V., Pushkarev, A. B., Ros, E., and Savolainen, T.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: We present multi-epoch, parsec-scale core brightness temperature observations of 447 AGN jets from the MOJAVE and 2cm Survey programs at 15 GHz from 1994 to 2019. The brightness temperature of each jet over time is characterized by its median value and variability. We find that the range of median brightness temperatures for AGN jets in our sample is much larger than the variations within individual jets, consistent with Doppler boosting being the primary difference between the brightness temperatures of jets in their median state. We combine the observed median brightness temperatures with apparent jet speed measurements to find the typical intrinsic Gaussian brightness temperature of (4.1 +- 0.6)*10^10 K, suggesting that jet cores are at or below equipartition between particle and magnetic field energy in their median state. We use this value to derive estimates for the Doppler factor for every source in our sample. For the 309 jets with both apparent speed and brightness temperature data, we estimate their Lorentz factors and viewing angles to the line of sight. Within the BL Lac optical class, we find that high-synchrotron-peaked (HSP) BL Lacs have smaller Doppler factors, lower Lorentz factors, and larger angles to the line of sight than intermediate and low-synchrotron-peaked (LSP) BL Lacs. We confirm that AGN jets with larger Doppler factors measured in their parsec-scale radio cores are more likely to be detected in gamma rays, and we find a strong correlation between gamma-ray luminosity and Doppler factor for the detected sources., Comment: 29 pages, 16 figures, 4 tables; accepted by ApJ; full electronic tables and all Figure Set plots are available as ancillary files
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

28. Identifying changing jets through their radio variability

Author: Liodakis, I., Hovatta, T., Aller, M. F., Aller, H. D., Gurwell, M. A., Lähteenmäki, A., and Tornikoski, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Supermassive black holes launch highly relativistic jets with velocities reaching Lorentz factors as high as $\Gamma>50$. How the jets accelerate to such high velocities and where along the jet do they reach terminal velocity are open questions that are tightly linked to their structure, launching and dissipation mechanisms. Changes in the beaming factor along the jets could potentially reveal jet acceleration, deceleration, or bending. We aim to (1) quantify the relativistic effects in multiple radio frequencies and (2) study possible jet velocity--viewing angle variations at parsec scales. We used the state-of-the-art code Magnetron to model light curves from the University of Michigan Radio Observatory and the Mets\"{a}hovi Radio Observatory's monitoring programs in five frequencies covering about 25 years of observations in the 4.8-37~GHz range for 61 sources. We supplement our data set with high-frequency radio observations in the 100-340~GHz range from ALMA, CARMA, and SMA. For each frequency we estimate the Doppler factor which we use to quantify possible changes in the relativistic effects along the jets. The majority of our sources do not show any statistically significant difference in their Doppler factor across frequencies. This is consistent with constant velocity in a conical jet, as expected at parsec scales. However, our analysis reveals 17 sources where relativistic beaming changes as a function of frequency. In the majority of cases the Doppler factor increases towards lower frequencies. Only 1253-053 shows the opposite behavior. By exploring their jet properties we find that the jet of 0420-014 is likely bent across the 4.8-340~GHz range. For 0212+735 the jet is likely parabolic, and still accelerating in the 4.8-37~GHz range. We discuss possible interpretations for the trends found in the remaining sources., Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure, 3 Tables, accepted for publication in A&A
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

29. SMILE: Search for MIlli-LEnses

Author: Casadio, C., Blinov, D., Readhead, A. C. S., Browne, I. W. A., Wilkinson, P. N., Hovatta, T., Mandarakas, N., Pavlidou, V., Tassis, K., Vedantham, H. K., Zensus, J. A., Diamantopoulos, V., Dolapsaki, K. E., Gkimisi, K., Kalaitzidakis, G., Mastorakis, M., Nikolaou, K., Ntormousi, E., Pelgrims, V., and Psarras, K.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract: Dark Matter (DM) halos with masses below $\sim10^{8}$ $M_{\odot}$, which would help to discriminate between DM models, may be detected through their gravitational effect on distant sources. The same applies to primordial black holes, considered as an alternative scenario to DM particle models. However, there is still no evidence for the existence of such objects. With the aim of finding compact objects in the mass range $\sim$ 10$^{6}$ -- 10$^{9}$$M_{\odot}$, we search for strong gravitational lenses on milli (mas)-arcseconds scales (< 150 mas). For our search, we used the Astrogeo VLBI FITS image database -- the largest publicly available database, containing multi-frequency VLBI data of 13828 individual sources. We used the citizen science approach to visually inspect all sources in all available frequencies in search for images with multiple compact components on mas-scales. At the final stage, sources were excluded based on the surface brightness preservation criterion. We obtained a sample of 40 sources that passed all steps and therefore are judged to be milli-arcsecond lens candidates. These sources are currently followed-up with on-going European VLBI Network (EVN) observations at 5 and 22 GHz. Based on spectral index measurements, we suggest that two of our candidates have a higher probability to be associated with gravitational lenses., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure; accepted for publication
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

30. A decade of joint MOJAVE-Fermi AGN monitoring: localisation of the gamma-ray emission region

Author: Kramarenko, I. G., Pushkarev, A. B., Kovalev, Y. Y., Lister, M. L., Hovatta, T., and Savolainen, T.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: Within the MOJAVE VLBA program (Monitoring of Jets in AGN with VLBA Experiments), we have accumulated observational data at 15 GHz for hundreds of jets in $\gamma$-ray bright active galactic nuclei since the beginning of the Fermi scientific observations in August 2008. We investigated a time delay between the flux density of AGN parsec-scale radio emission at 15 GHz and 0.1$-$300 GeV Fermi LAT photon flux, taken from constructed light curves using weekly and adaptive binning. The correlation analysis shows that radio is lagging $\gamma$-ray radiation by up to 8 months in the observer's frame, while in the source frame, the typical delay is about 2-3 months. If the jet radio emission, excluding the opaque core, is considered, significant correlation is found at greater time lags. We supplement these results with VLBI kinematics and core shift data to conclude that the dominant high-energy production zone is typically located at a distance of several parsecs from the central nucleus. We also found that quasars have on average more significant correlation peak, more distant $\gamma$-ray emission region from the central engine and shorter variability time scale compared to those of BL Lacertae objects., Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

31. Probing extreme environments with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Author: Boisson, C., Brown, A. M., Burtovoi, A., Cerruti, M., Chernyakova, M., Hassan, T., Lenain, J. -P., Manganaro, M., Romano, P., Sol, H., Tavecchio, F., Vercellone, S., Zampieri, L., Zanin, R., Zech, A., Agudo, I., Batista, R. Alves, Anguner, E. O., Antonelli, L. A., Backes, M., Balazs, C., González, J. Becerra, Bigongiari, C., Bissaldi, E., Bolmont, J., Bordas, P., Bošnjak, Ž., Böttcher, M., Burton, M., Cangemi, F., Caraveo, P., Cardillo, M., Caroff, S., Carosi, A., Casanova, S., Chaty, S., Contreras, J. L., Coelho, J. G., Cotter, G., D'Aì, A., D'Ammando, F., Pino, E. M. de Gouveia Dal, de Martino, D., Delgado, C., della Volpe, D., Djannati-Ataï, A., Anjos, R. C. Dos, Wilhelmi, E. de Oña, Dwarkadas, V., Emery, G., Fedorova, E., Fegan, S., Filipovic, M. D., Galanti, G., Gasparrini, D., Ghirlanda, G., Goldoni, P., Granot, J., Green, J. G., Heller, M., Hnatyk, B., Hnatyk, R., Horan, D., Hovatta, T., Inoue, S., Jamrozy, M., Khélifi, B., Komin, N., Kohri, K., Lamastra, A., La Palombara, N., Lindfors, E., Liodakis, I., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., Lucarelli, F., Luque-Escamilla, P. L., Marti, J., Martinez, M., Mazin, D., Mbarubucyeye, J. D., Menchiari, S., Mohrmann, L., Montaruli, T., Olaizola, A. Moralejo, Morcuende, D., Morlino, G., Morselli, A., Mundell, C. G., Murach, T., Nagai, A., Nayerhoda, A., Niemiec, J., Nikolajuk, M., Olmi, B., Orienti, M., Paredes, J. M., Pareschi, G., Pe'er, A., Pühlhofer, G., Punch, M., Reimer, O., Ribó, M., Rieger, F., Rodriguez, G., Rodriguez, J., Romeo, G., Roncadelli, M., Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Sadeh, I., Greus, F. Salesa, Sawangwit, U., Schüssler, F., Sergijenko, O., Shellard, R. C., Saturni, F. G., Stamerra, A., Stolarczyk, Th., Tagliaferri, G., Testa, V., Tibaldo, L., Ventura, S., Viana, A., Vink, J., Vitale, V., Vorobiov, S., Wierzcholska, A., Zacharias, M., and Zavrtanik, D.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The physics of the non-thermal Universe provides information on the acceleration mechanisms in extreme environments, such as black holes and relativistic jets, neutron stars, supernovae or clusters of galaxies. In the presence of magnetic fields, particles can be accelerated towards relativistic energies. As a consequence, radiation along the entire electromagnetic spectrum can be observed, and extreme environments are also the most likely sources of multi-messenger emission. The most energetic part of the electromagnetic spectrum corresponds to the very-high-energy (VHE, E>100 GeV) gamma-ray regime, which can be extensively studied with ground based Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs). The results obtained by the current generation of IACTs, such as H.E.S.S., MAGIC, and VERITAS, demonstrate the crucial importance of the VHE band in understanding the non-thermal emission of extreme environments in our Universe. In some objects, the energy output in gamma rays can even outshine the rest of the broadband spectrum. The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next generation of IACTs, which, with cutting edge technology and a strategic configuration of ~100 telescopes distributed in two observing sites, in the northern and southern hemispheres, will reach better sensitivity, angular and energy resolution, and broader energy coverage than currently operational IACTs. With CTA we can probe the most extreme environments and considerably boost our knowledge of the non-thermal Universe., Comment: Submitted as input to ASTRONET Science Vision and Infrastructure roadmap on behalf of the CTA consortium
Published: 2021

32. Multi-messenger and transient astrophysics with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Author: Bošnjak, Ž., Brown, A. M., Carosi, A., Chernyakova, M., Cristofari, P., Longo, F., López-Oramas, A., Santander, M., Satalecka, K., Schüssler, F., Sergijenko, O., Stamerra, A., Agudo, I., Batista, R. Alves, Amato, E., Anguner, E. O., Antonelli, L. A., Backes, M., Balazs, Csaba, Baroncelli, L., Tjus, J. Becker, Bigongiari, C., Bissaldi, E., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., Böttcher, M., Bordas, P., Braiding, C., Bregeon, J., Bucciantini, N., Bulgarelli, A., Burton, M., Cangemi, F., Caraveo, P., Cardillo, M., Caroff, S., Casanova, S., Chaty, S., Coelho, J. G., Cotter, G., D'Aì, A., D'Ammando, F., Pino, E. M. de Gouveia Dal, della Volpe, D., de Martino, D., Di Girolamo, T., Di Piano, A., Djannati-Ataï, A., Dwarkadas, V., Wilhelmi, E. de Ona, Anjos, R. C. Dos, Emery, G., Fedorova, E., Fegan, S., Fiasson, A., Fioretti, V., Filipovic, M. D., Gaggero, D., Galanti, G., Gasparrini, D., Ghirlanda, G., Goldoni, P., Granot, J., Green, J. G., Heller, M., Hnatyk, B., Hnatyk, R., Horan, D., Hovatta, T., Inoue, S., Jamrozy, M., Kantzas, D., Khélifi, B., Komin, N., Lamastra, A., La Palombara, N., Lenain, J. P., Lindfors, E., Liodakis, I., Lombardi, S., Lucarelli, F., Luque-Escamilla, P. L., Majumdar, P., Marcowith, A., Markoff, S., Marti, J., Martinez, M., Mazin, D., McKeague, S., Mereghetti, S., Mestre, E., Montaruli, T., Morlino, G., Morselli, A., Mundell, C., Murach, T., Nava, L., Nayerhoda, A., Nicastro, L., Niemiec, J., Nikolajuk, M., Olmi, B., Ong, R., Orienti, M., Osborne, J. P., Paredes, Josep M., Pareschi, G., Parmiggiani, N., Patricelli, B., Pe'er, A., Piano, G., Pühlhofer, G., Punch, M., Reimer, O., Ribó, M., Rodriguez, G., Rodriguez, J., Romano, P., Romeo, G., Roncadelli, M., Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Sadeh, I., Greus, F. Salesa, Saturni, F. G., Sawangwit, U., Seglar-Arroyo, M., Shellard, R. C., Sol, H., Starling, R., Stolarczyk, T., Tagliaferri, G., Tavecchio, F., Tibaldo, L., Testa, V., Vercellone, S., Viana, A., Vink, J., Vitale, V., Vergani, S. D., Vorobiov, S., Wierzcholska, A., Yang, L., Zavrtanik, D., and Zhdanov, V.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The discovery of gravitational waves, high-energy neutrinos or the very-high-energy counterpart of gamma-ray bursts has revolutionized the high-energy and transient astrophysics community. The development of new instruments and analysis techniques will allow the discovery and/or follow-up of new transient sources. We describe the prospects for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the next-generation ground-based gamma-ray observatory, for multi-messenger and transient astrophysics in the decade ahead. CTA will explore the most extreme environments via very-high-energy observations of compact objects, stellar collapse events, mergers and cosmic-ray accelerators., Comment: Submitted to ASTRONET roadmap on behalf of the CTA consortium
Published: 2021

33. The Time-Dependent Distribution of Optical Polarization Angle Changes in Blazars

Author: Kiehlmann, S., Blinov, D., Liodakis, I., Pavlidou, V., Readhead, A. C. S., Angelakis, E., Casadio, C., Hovatta, T., Kylafis, N., Mahabal, A., Mandarakas, N., Myserlis, I., Panopoulou, G. V., Pearson, T. J., Ramaprakash, A., Reig, P., Skalidis, R., Slowikowska, A., Tassis, K., and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: At optical wavelengths, blazar Electric Vector Position Angle (EVPA) rotations linked with gamma-ray activity have been the subject of intense interest and systematic investigation for over a decade. One difficulty in the interpretation of EVPA rotations is the inherent 180{\deg} ambiguity in the measurements. It is therefore essential, when studying EVPA rotations, to ensure that the typical time-interval between successive observations -- i.e. the cadence -- is short enough to ensure that the correct modulo 180{\deg} value is selected. This optimal cadence depends on the maximum intrinsic EVPA rotation speed in blazars, which is currently not known. In this paper we address the following questions for the RoboPol sample: What range of rotation speeds for rotations greater than 90{\deg} can we expect? What observation cadence is required to detect such rotations? Have rapid rotations been missed in EVPA rotation studies thus far? What fraction of data is affected by the ambiguity? And how likely are detected rotations affected by the ambiguity? We answer these questions with three seasons of optical polarimetric observations of a statistical sample of blazars sampled weekly with the RoboPol instrument and an additional season with daily observations. We model the distribution of EVPA changes on time scales from 1-30 days and estimate the fraction of changes exceeding 90{\deg}. We show that at least daily observations are necessary to measure >96% of optical EVPA variability in the RoboPol sample of blazars correctly and that intra-day observations are needed to measure the fastest rotations that have been seen thus far., Comment: accepted to MNRAS, 20 pages, 15 figures
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

34. VHE gamma-ray detection of FSRQ QSO B1420+326 and modeling of its enhanced broadband state in 2020

Author: Acciari, V. A., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Artero, M., Asano, K., Baack, D., Babić, A., Baquero, A., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bellizzi, L., Bernardini, E., Bernardos, M., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Ceribella, G., Cerruti, M., Chai, Y., Chilingarian, A., Cikota, S., Colak, S. M., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Mendez, C. Delgado, Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Espiñeira, E. Do Souto, Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fattorini, A., Ferrara, G., Foffano, L., Fonseca, M. V., Font, L., Fruck, C., Fukami, S., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinović, N., Green, J. G., Green, D., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Heckmann, L., Herrera, J., Hoang, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Inada, T., Inoue, S., Ishio, K., Iwamura, Y., Jormanainen, J., Jouvin, L., Kajiwara, Y., Karjalainen, M., Kerszberg, D., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López-Coto, R., López-Moya, M., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Maggio, C., Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mannheim, K., Maraschi, L., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Mazin, D., Mender, S., Mićanović, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Minev, M., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Moretti, E., Neustroev, V., Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Ninci, D., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletić, L., Peñil, P., Perennes, C., Persic, M., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Priyadarshi, C., Puljak, I., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Saha, L., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Satalecka, K., Saturni, F. G., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Šnidarić, I., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Surić, T., Takahashi, M., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Torres-Albà, N., Tosti, L., Truzzi, S., Tutone, A., van Scherpenberg, J., Vanzo, G., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Will, M., Zarić, D., Angioni, R., D'Ammando, F., Ciprini, S., Cheung, C. C., Orienti, M., Pacciani, L., Prajapati, P., Kumar, P., Ganesh, S., Kurtenkov, A., Marchini, A., Carrasco, L., Escobedo, G., Porras, A., Recillas, E., Lähteenmäki, A., Tornikoski, M., Berton, M., Tammi, J., Vera, R. J. C., Jorstad, S. G., Marscher, A. P., Weaver, Z. R., Hart, M., Hallum, M. K., Larionov, V. M., Borman, G. A., Grishina, T. S., Kopatskaya, E. N., Larionova, E. G., Nikiforova, A. A., Morozova, D. A., Savchenko, S. S., Troitskaya, Yu. V., Troitsky, I. S., Vasilyev, A. A., Hodges, M., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Max-Moerbeck, W., Readhead, A. C. S., Reeves, R., and Pearson, T. J.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Context. QSO B1420+326 is a blazar classified as a Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar (FSRQ). In the beginning of 2020 it underwent an enhanced flux state. An extensive multiwavelength campaign allowed us to trace the evolution of the flare. Aims. We search for VHE gamma-ray emission from QSO B1420+326 during this flaring state. We aim to characterize and model the broadband emission of the source over different phases of the flare. Methods. The source was observed with a number of instruments in radio, near infrared, optical (including polarimetry and spectroscopy), ultra-violet, X-ray and gamma-ray bands. We use dedicated optical spectroscopy results to estimate the accretion disk and the dust torus luminosity. We perform spectral energy distribution modeling in the framework of combined Synchrotron-Self-Compton and External Compton scenario in which the electron energy distribution is partially determined from acceleration and cooling processes. Results. During the enhanced state the flux of both SED components drastically increased and the peaks were shifted to higher energies. Follow up observations with the MAGIC telescopes led to the detection of very-high-energy gamma-ray emission from this source, making it one of only a handful of FSRQs known in this energy range. Modeling allows us to constrain the evolution of the magnetic field and electron energy distribution in the emission region. The gamma-ray flare was accompanied by a rotation of the optical polarization vector during a low polarization state. Also, a new, superluminal radio knot contemporaneously appeared in the radio image of the jet. The optical spectroscopy shows a prominent FeII bump with flux evolving together with the continuum emission and a MgII line with varying equivalent width., Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in A&A
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

35. The Relativistic Jet Orientation and Host Galaxy of the Peculiar Blazar PKS 1413+135

Author: Readhead, A. C. S., Ravi, V., Liodakis, I., Lister, M. L., Singh, V., Aller, M. F., Blandford, R. D., Browne, I. W. A., Gorjian, V., Grainge, K. J. B., Gurwell, M. A., Hodges, M. W., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Lähteenmäki, A., McAloone, T., Max-Moerbeck, W., Pavlidou, V., Pearson, T. J., Peirson, A. L., Perlman, E. S., Reeves, R. A., Soifer, B. T., Taylor, G. B., Tornikoski, M., Vedantham, H. K., Werner, M., Wilkinson, P. N., and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: PKS 1413+135 is one of the most peculiar blazars known. Its strange properties led to the hypothesis almost four decades ago that it is gravitationally lensed by a mass concentration associated with an intervening galaxy. It exhibits symmetric achromatic variability, a rare form of variability that has been attributed to gravitational milli-lensing. It has been classified as a BL Lac object, and is one of the rare objects in this class with a visible counterjet. BL Lac objects have jet axes aligned close to the line of sight. It has also been classified as a compact symmetric object, which have jet axes not aligned close to the line of sight. Intensive efforts to understand this blazar have hitherto failed to resolve even the questions of the orientation of the relativistic jet, and the host galaxy. Answering these two questions is important as they challenge our understanding of jets in active galactic nuclei and the classification schemes we use to describe them. We show that the jet axis is aligned close to the line of sight and PKS 1413+135 is almost certainly not located in the apparent host galaxy, but is a background object in the redshift range $0.247 < z < 0.5$. The intervening spiral galaxy at $z = 0.247$ provides a natural host for the putative lens responsible for symmetric achromatic variability and is shown to be a Seyfert 2 galaxy. We also show that, as for the radio emission, a "multizone" model is needed to account for the high-energy emission., Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. 28 pages, 15 figures
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

36. RoboPol: AGN polarimetric monitoring data

Author: Blinov, D., Kiehlmann, S., Pavlidou, V., Panopoulou, G. V., Skalidis, R., Angelakis, E., Casadio, C., Einoder, E. N., Hovatta, T., Kokolakis, K., Kougentakis, A., Kus, A., Kylafis, N., Kyritsis, E., Lalakos, A., Liodakis, I., Maharana, S., Makrydopoulou, E., Mandarakas, N., Maragkakis, G. M., Myserlis, I., Papadakis, I., Paterakis, G., Pearson, T. J., Ramaprakash, A. N., Readhead, A. C. S., Reig, P., Słowikowska, A., Tassis, K., Xexakis, K., Żejmo, M., and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract: We present uniformly reprocessed and re-calibrated data from the RoboPol programme of optopolarimetric monitoring of active galactic nuclei (AGN), covering observations between 2013, when the instrument was commissioned, and 2017. In total, the dataset presented in this paper includes 5068 observations of 222 AGN with Dec > -25 deg. We describe the current version of the RoboPol pipeline that was used to process and calibrate the entire dataset, and we make the data publicly available for use by the astronomical community. Average quantities summarising optopolarimetric behaviour (average degree of polarization, polarization variability index) are also provided for each source we have observed and for the time interval we have followed it., Comment: Accepted to MNRAS
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

37. Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array for probing cosmology and fundamental physics with gamma-ray propagation

Author: Consortium, The Cherenkov Telescope Array, Abdalla, H., Abe, H., Acero, F., Acharyya, A., Adam, R., Agudo, I., Aguirre-Santaella, A., Alfaro, R., Alfaro, J., Alispach, C., Aloisio, R., B, R. Alves, Amati, L., Amato, E., Ambrosi, G., Angüner, E. O., Araudo, A., Armstrong, T., Arqueros, F., Arrabito, L., Asano, K., Ascasíbar, Y., Ashley, M., Backes, M., Balazs, C., Balbo, M., Balmaverde, B., Larriva, A. Baquero, Martins, V. Barbosa, Barkov, M., Baroncelli, L., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Batista, P., Becerra, J., Becherini, Y., Beck, G., Tjus, J. Becker, Belmont, R., Benbow, W., Bernardini, E., Berti, A., Berton, M., Bertucci, B., Beshley, V., Bi, B., Biasuzzi, B., Biland, A., Bissaldi, E., Biteau, J., Blanch, O., Bocchino, F., Boisson, C., Bolmont, J., Bonanno, G., Arbeletche, L. Bonneau, Bonnoli, G., Bordas, P., Bottacini, E., Böttcher, M., Bozhilov, V., Bregeon, J., Brill, A., Brown, A. M., Bruno, P., Bruno, A., Bulgarelli, A., Burton, M., Buscemi, M., Caccianiga, A., Cameron, R., Capasso, M., Caprai, M., Caproni, A., Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R., Caraveo, P., Carosi, R., Carosi, A., Casanova, S., Cascone, E., Cauz, D., Cerny, K., Cerruti, M., Chadwick, P., Chaty, S., Chen, A., Chernyakova, M., Chiaro, G., Chiavassa, A., Chytka, L., Conforti, V., Conte, F., Contreras, J. L., Coronado-Blazquez, J., Cortina, J., Costa, A., Costantini, H., Covino, S., Cristofari, P., Cuevas, O., D'Ammando, F., Daniel, M. K., Davies, J., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., de Lavergne, M. de Bony, De Caprio, V., Anjos, R. de Cássia dos, Pino, E. M. de Gouveia Dal, De Lotto, B., De Martino, D., de Naurois, M., Wilhelmi, E. de Oña, De Palma, F., de Souza, V., Delgado, C., Della Ceca, R., della Volpe, D., Depaoli, D., Di Girolamo, T., Di Pierro, F., Díaz, C., Díaz-Bahamondes, C., Diebold, S., Djannati-Ataï, A., Dmytriiev, A., Domínguez, A., Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Dournaux, J., Dwarkadas, V. V., Ebr, J., Eckner, C., Einecke, S., Ekoume, T. R. N., Elsässer, D., Emery, G., Evoli, C., Fairbairn, M., Falceta-Goncalves, D., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Ferrand, G., Fiandrini, E., Fiasson, A., Fioretti, V., Foffano, L., Fonseca, M. V., Font, L., Fontaine, G., Franco, F. J., Coromina, L. Freixas, Fukami, S., Fukazawa, Y., Fukui, Y., Gaggero, D., Galanti, G., Gammaldi, V., Garcia, E., Garczarczyk, M., Gascon, D., Gaug, M., Gent, A., Ghalumyan, A., Ghirlanda, G., Gianotti, F., Giarrusso, M., Giavitto, G., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Glicenstein, J., Goldoni, P., González, J. M., Gourgouliatos, K., Grabarczyk, T., Grandi, P., Granot, J., Grasso, D., Green, J., Grube, J., Gueta, O., Gunji, S., Halim, A., Harvey, M., Collado, T. Hassan, Hayashi, K., Heller, M., Cadena, S. Hernández, Hervet, O., Hinton, J., Hiroshima, N., Hnatyk, B., Hnatyk, R., Hoffmann, D., Hofmann, W., Holder, J., Horan, D., Hörandel, J., Horvath, P., Hovatta, T., Hrabovsky, M., Hrupec, D., Hughes, G., Hütten, M., Iarlori, M., Inada, T., Inoue, S., Insolia, A., Ionica, M., Iori, M., Jacquemont, M., Jamrozy, M., Janecek, P., Martínez, I. Jiménez, Jin, W., Jung-Richardt, I., Jurysek, J., Kaaret, P., Karas, V., Karkar, S., Kawanaka, N., Kerszberg, D., Khélifi, B., Kissmann, R., Knödlseder, J., Kobayashi, Y., Kohri, K., Komin, N., Kong, A., Kosack, K., Kubo, H., La Palombara, N., Lamanna, G., Lang, R. G., Lapington, J., Laporte, P., Lemoine-Goumard, M., Lenain, J., Leone, F., Leto, G., Leuschner, F., Lindfors, E., Lloyd, S., Lohse, T., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., Lopez, A., López, M., López-Coto, R., Loporchio, S., Lucarelli, F., Luque-Escamilla, P. L., Lyard, E., Maggio, C., Majczyna, A., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Mandat, D., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Manicò, G., Marcowith, A., Marculewicz, M., Markoff, S., Marquez, P., Martí, J., Martinez, O., Martínez, M., Martínez, G., Martínez-Huerta, H., Maurin, G., Mazin, D., Mbarubucyeye, J. D., Miranda, D. Medina, Meyer, M., Micanovic, S., Miener, T., Minev, M., Miranda, J. M., Mitchell, A., Mizuno, T., Mode, B., Moderski, R., Mohrmann, L., Molina, E., Montaruli, T., Moralejo, A., Merino, J. Morales, Morcuende-Parrilla, D., Morselli, A., Mukherjee, R., Mundell, C., Murach, T., Muraishi, H., Nagai, A., Nakamori, T., Nemmen, R., Niemiec, J., Nieto, D., Nievas, M., Nikołajuk, M., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nosek, D., Nozaki, S., O'Brien, P., Ohira, Y., Ohishi, M., Oka, T., Ong, R. A., Orienti, M., Orito, R., Orlandini, M., Orlando, E., Osborne, J. P., Ostrowski, M., Oya, I., Pagliaro, A., Palatka, M., Paneque, D., Pantaleo, F. R., Paredes, J. M., Parmiggiani, N., Patricelli, B., Pavletić, L., Pe'er, A., Pech, M., Pecimotika, M., Peresano, M., Persic, M., Petruk, O., Pfrang, K., Piatteli, P., Pietropaolo, E., Pillera, R., Pilszyk, B., Pimentel, D., Pintore, F., Pita, S., Pohl, M., Poireau, V., Polo, M., Prado, R. R., Prast, J., Principe, G., Produit, N., Prokoph, H., Prouza, M., Przybilski, H., Pueschel, E., Pühlhofer, G., Pumo, M. L., Punch, M., Queiroz, F., Quirrenbach, A., Rando, R., Razzaque, S., Rebert, E., Recchia, S., Reichherzer, P., Reimer, O., Reimer, A., Renier, Y., Reposeur, T., Rhode, W., Ribeiro, D., Ribó, M., Richtler, T., Rico, J., Rieger, F., Rizi, V., Rodriguez, J., Fernandez, G. Rodriguez, Ramirez, J. C. Rodriguez, Vázquez, J. J. Rodríguez, Romano, P., Romeo, G., Roncadelli, M., Rosado, J., de Leon, A. Rosales, Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Rujopakarn, W., Russo, F., Sadeh, I., Saha, L., Saito, T., Greus, F. Salesa, Sanchez, D., Sánchez-Conde, M., Sangiorgi, P., Sano, H., Santander, M., Santos, E. M., Sanuy, A., Sarkar, S., Saturni, F. G., Sawangwit, U., Scherer, A., Schleicher, B., Schovanek, P., Schussler, F., Schwanke, U., Sciacca, E., Scuderi, S., Arroyo, M. Seglar, Sergijenko, O., Servillat, M., Seweryn, K., Shalchi, A., Sharma, P., Shellard, R. C., Siejkowski, H., Sinha, A., Sliusar, V., Slowikowska, A., Sokolenko, A., Sol, H., Specovius, A., Spencer, S., Spiga, D., Stamerra, A., Stanič, S., Starling, R., Stolarczyk, T., Straumann, U., Strišković, J., Suda, Y., Świerk, P., Tagliaferri, G., Takahashi, H., Takahashi, M., Tavecchio, F., Taylor, L., Tejedor, L. A., Temnikov, P., Terrier, R., Terzic, T., Testa, V., Tian, W., Tibaldo, L., Tonev, D., Torres, D. F., Torresi, E., Tosti, L., Tothill, N., Tovmassian, G., Travnicek, P., Truzzi, S., Tuossenel, F., Umana, G., Vacula, M., Vagelli, V., Valentino, M., Vallage, B., Vallania, P., van Eldik, C., Varner, G. S., Vassiliev, V., Acosta, M. Vázquez, Vecchi, M., Veh, J., Vercellone, S., Vergani, S., Verguilov, V., Vettolani, G. P., Viana, A., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vorobiov, S., Vovk, I., Vuillaume, T., Wagner, S. J., Walter, R., Watson, J., White, M., White, R., Wiemann, R., Wierzcholska, A., Will, M., Williams, D. A., Wischnewski, R., Wolter, A., Yamazaki, R., Yanagita, S., Yang, L., Yoshikoshi, T., Zacharias, M., Zaharijas, G., Zaric, D., Zavrtanik, M., Zavrtanik, D., Zech, A., Zechlin, H., Zhdanov, V. I., and Živec, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract: The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the new-generation ground-based observatory for $\gamma$-ray astronomy, provides unique capabilities to address significant open questions in astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. We study some of the salient areas of $\gamma$-ray cosmology that can be explored as part of the Key Science Projects of CTA, through simulated observations of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and of their relativistic jets. Observations of AGN with CTA will enable a measurement of $\gamma$-ray absorption on the extragalactic background light with a statistical uncertainty below 15% up to a redshift $z=2$ and to constrain or detect $\gamma$-ray halos up to intergalactic-magnetic-field strengths of at least 0.3pG. Extragalactic observations with CTA also show promising potential to probe physics beyond the Standard Model. The best limits on Lorentz invariance violation from $\gamma$-ray astronomy will be improved by a factor of at least two to three. CTA will also probe the parameter space in which axion-like particles could constitute a significant fraction, if not all, of dark matter. We conclude on the synergies between CTA and other upcoming facilities that will foster the growth of $\gamma$-ray cosmology., Comment: 71 pages (including affiliations and references), 13 figures, 6 tables. Accepted in JCAP; matches published version. Corresponding authors: Jonathan Biteau, Julien Lefaucheur, Humberto Martinez-Huerta, Manuel Meyer, Santiago Pita, Ievgen Vovk
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

38. Association of IceCube neutrinos with radio sources observed at Owens Valley and Mets\'ahovi Radio Observatories

Author: Hovatta, T., Lindfors, E., Kiehlmann, S., Max-Moerbeck, W., Hodges, M., Liodakis, I., Lahteenmaki, A., Pearson, T. J., Readhead, A. C. S., Reeves, R. A., Suutarinen, S., Tammi, J., and Tornikoski, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Identifying the most likely sources for high-energy neutrino emission has been one of the main topics in high-energy astrophysics ever since the first observation of high-energy neutrinos by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Active galactic nuclei with relativistic jets, also known as blazars, have been considered to be one of the main candidates because of their ability to accelerate particles to high energies. We study the connection between radio emission and IceCube neutrino events using data from the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) and Mets\"ahovi Radio Observatory blazar monitoring programs. We identify sources in our radio monitoring sample that are positionally consistent with IceCube high-energy neutrino events. We estimate their mean flux density and variability amplitudes around the neutrino arrival time, and compare these with values from random samples to establish the significance of our results. We find radio source associations within our samples with 15 high-energy neutrino events detected by IceCube. Nearly half of the associated sources are not detected in the $\gamma$-ray energies, but their radio variability properties and Doppler boosting factors are similar to the $\gamma$-ray detected objects in our sample, meaning that they could still be potential neutrino emitters. We find that the number of strongly flaring objects in our statistically complete OVRO samples is unlikely to be a random coincidence (at $2\sigma$ level). Based on our results, we conclude that although it is clear that not all neutrino events are associated with strong radio flaring blazars, observations of large-amplitude radio flares in a blazar at the same time as a neutrino event are unlikely to be a random coincidence., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A (18 pages, 6 figures). Accepted version (v2) includes changes to methodology and associations, but the main conclusions are unaffected. V3 minor fix to numbers in Sect. 3.3.1. and some language edits
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

39. Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array to a dark matter signal from the Galactic centre

Author: Consortium, The Cherenkov Telescope Array, Acharyya, A., Adam, R., Adams, C., Agudo, I., Aguirre-Santaella, A., Alfaro, R., Alfaro, J., Alispach, C., Aloisio, R., Batista, R. Alves, Amati, L., Ambrosi, G., Angüner, E. O., Antonelli, L. A., Aramo, C., Araudo, A., Armstrong, T., Arqueros, F., Asano, K., Ascasíbar, Y., Ashley, M., Balazs, C., Ballester, O., Larriva, A. Baquero, Martins, V. Barbosa, Barkov, M., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Bastieri, D., Becerra, J., Beck, G., Tjus, J. Becker, Benbow, W., Benito, M., Berge, D., Bernardini, E., Bernlöhr, K., Berti, A., Bertucci, B., Beshley, V., Biasuzzi, B., Biland, A., Bissaldi, E., Biteau, J., Blanch, O., Blazek, J., Bocchino, F., Boisson, C., Arbeletche, L. Bonneau, Bordas, P., Bosnjak, Z., Bottacini, E., Bozhilov, V., Bregeon, J., Brill, A., Bringmann, T., Brown, A. M., Brun, P., Brun, F., Bruno, P., Bulgarelli, A., Burton, M., Burtovoi, A., Buscemi, M., Cameron, R., Capasso, M., Caproni, A., Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R., Caraveo, P., Carosi, R., Carosi, A., Casanova, S., Cascone, E., Cassol, F., Catalani, F., Cauz, D., Cerruti, M., Chadwick, P., Chaty, S., Chen, A., Chernyakova, M., Chiaro, G., Chiavassa, A., Chikawa, M., Chudoba, J., Çolak, M., Conforti, V., Coniglione, R., Conte, F., Contreras, J. L., Coronado-Blazquez, J., Costa, A., Costantini, H., Cotter, G., Cristofari, P., D'Aì, A., D'Ammando, F., Damone, L. A., Daniel, M. K., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Caprio, V., Anjos, R. de Cássia dos, Pino, E. M. de Gouveia Dal, De Lotto, B., De Martino, D., Wilhelmi, E. de Oña, De Palma, F., de Souza, V., Delgado, C., Giler, A. G. Delgado, della Volpe, D., Depaoli, D., Di Girolamo, T., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Diebold, S., Dmytriiev, A., Domínguez, A., Donini, A., Doro, M., Ebr, J., Eckner, C., Edwards, T. D. P., Ekoume, T. R. N., Elsässer, D., Evoli, C., Falceta-Goncalves, D., Fedorova, E., Fegan, S., Feng, Q., Ferrand, G., Ferrara, G., Fiandrini, E., Fiasson, A., Filipovic, M., Fioretti, V., Fiori, M., Foffano, L., Fontaine, G., Fornieri, O., Franco, F. J., Fukami, S., Fukui, Y., Gaggero, D., Galaz, G., Gammaldi, V., Garcia, E., Garczarczyk, M., Gascon, D., Gent, A., Ghalumyan, A., Gianotti, F., Giarrusso, M., Giavitto, G., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Giuliani, A., Glicenstein, J., Gnatyk, R., Goldoni, P., González, M. M., Gourgouliatos, K., Granot, J., Grasso, D., Green, J., Grillo, A., Gueta, O., Gunji, S., Halim, A., Hassan, T., Heller, M., Cadena, S. Hernández, Hiroshima, N., Hnatyk, B., Hofmann, W., Holder, J., Horan, D., Hörandel, J., Horvath, P., Hovatta, T., Hrabovsky, M., Hrupec, D., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Hütten, M., Iarlori, M., Inada, T., Inoue, S., Iocco, F., Iori, M., Jamrozy, M., Janecek, P., Jin, W., Jouvin, L., Jurysek, J., Karukes, E., Katarzyński, K., Kazanas, D., Kerszberg, D., Kherlakian, M. C., Kissmann, R., Knödlseder, J., Kobayashi, Y., Kohri, K., Komin, N., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamanna, G., Lapington, J., Laporte, P., de Oliveira, M. A. Leigui, Lenain, J., Leone, F., Leto, G., Lindfors, E., Lohse, T., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., Lopez, A., López, M., López-Coto, R., Loporchio, S., Luque-Escamilla, P. L., Mach, E., Maggio, C., Maier, G., Mallamaci, M., de Almeida, R. Malta Nunes, Mandat, D., Manganaro, M., Mangano, S., Manicò, G., Marculewicz, M., Mariotti, M., Markoff, S., Marquez, P., Martí, J., Martinez, O., Martínez, M., Martínez, G., Martínez-Huerta, H., Maurin, G., Mazin, D., Mbarubucyeye, J. D., Miranda, D. Medina, Meyer, M., Miceli, M., Miener, T., Minev, M., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Mizuno, T., Mode, B., Moderski, R., Mohrmann, L., Molina, E., Montaruli, T., Moralejo, A., Morcuende-Parrilla, D., Morselli, A., Mukherjee, R., Mundell, C., Nagai, A., Nakamori, T., Nemmen, R., Niemiec, J., Nieto, D., Nikołajuk, M., Ninci, D., Noda, K., Nosek, D., Nozaki, S., Ohira, Y., Ohishi, M., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Okumura, A., Ong, R. A., Orienti, M., Orito, R., Orlandini, M., Orlando, S., Orlando, E., Ostrowski, M., Oya, I., Pagano, I., Pagliaro, A., Palatiello, M., Pantaleo, F. R., Paredes, J. M., Pareschi, G., Parmiggiani, N., Patricelli, B., Pavletić, L., Pe'er, A., Pecimotika, M., Pérez-Romero, J., Persic, M., Petruk, O., Pfrang, K., Piano, G., Piatteli, P., Pietropaolo, E., Pillera, R., Pilszyk, B., Pintore, F., Pohl, M., Poireau, V., Prado, R. R., Prandini, E., Prast, J., Principe, G., Prokoph, H., Prouza, M., Przybilski, H., Pühlhofer, G., Pumo, M. L., Queiroz, F., Quirrenbach, A., Rainò, S., Rando, R., Razzaque, S., Recchia, S., Reimer, O., Reisenegger, A., Renier, Y., Rhode, W., Ribeiro, D., Ribó, M., Richtler, T., Rico, J., Rieger, F., Rinchiuso, L., Rizi, V., Rodriguez, J., Fernandez, G. Rodriguez, Ramirez, J. C. Rodriguez, Rojas, G., Romano, P., Romeo, G., Rosado, J., Rowell, G., Rudak, B., Russo, F., Sadeh, I., Hatlen, E. Sæther, Safi-Harb, S., Greus, F. Salesa, Salina, G., Sanchez, D., Sánchez-Conde, M., Sangiorgi, P., Sano, H., Santander, M., Santos, E. M., Santos-Lima, R., Sanuy, A., Sarkar, S., Saturni, F. G., Sawangwit, U., Schussler, F., Schwanke, U., Sciacca, E., Scuderi, S., Seglar-Arroyo, M., Sergijenko, O., Servillat, M., Seweryn, K., Shalchi, A., Sharma, P., Shellard, R. C., Siejkowski, H., Silk, J., Siqueira, C., Sliusar, V., Słowikowska, A., Sokolenko, A., Sol, H., Spencer, S., Stamerra, A., Stanič, S., Starling, R., Stolarczyk, T., Straumann, U., Strišković, J., Suda, Y., Suomijarvi, T., Świerk, P., Tavecchio, F., Taylor, L., Tejedor, L. A., Teshima, M., Testa, V., Tibaldo, L., Peixoto, C. J. Todero, Tokanai, F., Tonev, D., Tosti, G., Tosti, L., Tothill, N., Truzzi, S., Travnicek, P., Vagelli, V., Vallage, B., Vallania, P., van Eldik, C., Vandenbroucke, J., Varner, G. S., Vassiliev, V., Acosta, M. Vázquez, Vecchi, M., Ventura, S., Vercellone, S., Vergani, S., Verna, G., Viana, A., Vigorito, C. F., Vink, J., Vitale, V., Vorobiov, S., Vovk, I., Vuillaume, T., Wagner, S. J., Walter, R., Watson, J., Weniger, C., White, R., White, M., Wiemann, R., Wierzcholska, A., Will, M., Williams, D. A., Wischnewski, R., Yanagita, S., Yang, L., Yoshikoshi, T., Zacharias, M., Zaharijas, G., Zakaria, A. A., Zampieri, L., Zanin, R., Zaric, D., Zavrtanik, M., Zavrtanik, D., Zdziarski, A. A., Zech, A., Zechlin, H., Zhdanov, V. I., and Živec, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract: We provide an updated assessment of the power of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) to search for thermally produced dark matter at the TeV scale, via the associated gamma-ray signal from pair-annihilating dark matter particles in the region around the Galactic centre. We find that CTA will open a new window of discovery potential, significantly extending the range of robustly testable models given a standard cuspy profile of the dark matter density distribution. Importantly, even for a cored profile, the projected sensitivity of CTA will be sufficient to probe various well-motivated models of thermally produced dark matter at the TeV scale. This is due to CTA's unprecedented sensitivity, angular and energy resolutions, and the planned observational strategy. The survey of the inner Galaxy will cover a much larger region than corresponding previous observational campaigns with imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. CTA will map with unprecedented precision the large-scale diffuse emission in high-energy gamma rays, constituting a background for dark matter searches for which we adopt state-of-the-art models based on current data. Throughout our analysis, we use up-to-date event reconstruction Monte Carlo tools developed by the CTA consortium, and pay special attention to quantifying the level of instrumental systematic uncertainties, as well as background template systematic errors, required to probe thermally produced dark matter at these energies. "Full likelihood tables complementing our analysis are provided here [ https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4057987 ]", Comment: 68 pages (including references) and 26 figures; text identical to the version published in JCAP
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

40. An intermittent extreme BL Lac: MWL study of 1ES 2344+514 in an enhanced state

Author: MAGIC Collaboration, Acciari, V. A., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Baack, D., Babić, A., Banerjee, B., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bellizzi, L., Bernardini, E., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Ceribella, G., Cerruti, M., Chai, Y., Chilingarian, A., Cikota, S., Colak, S. M., Colin, U., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Espiñeira, E. Do Souto, Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fattorini, A., Ferrara, G., Foffano, L., Fonseca, M. V., Font, L., Fruck, C., Fukami, S., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinović, N., Green, D., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Herrera, J., Hoang, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Inada, T., Inoue, S., Ishio, K., Iwamura, Y., Jouvin, L., Kajiwara, Y., Kerszberg, D., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López, M., López-Coto, R., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Maggio, C., Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Maraschi, L., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Mazin, D., Mender, S., Mićanović, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Minev, M., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Moretti, E., Munar-Adrover, P., Neustroev, V., Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Ninci, D., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nogués, L., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Otero-Santos, J., Paiano, S., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletić, L., Peñil, P., Peresano, M., Persic, M., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Puljak, I., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Saha, L., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Satalecka, K., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Šnidarić, I., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Surić, T., Takahashi, M., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Torres-Albà, N., Tosti, L., van Scherpenberg, J., Vanzo, G., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Will, M., Zarić, D., Collaboration, FACT, Balbo, M., Beck, M., Biederbeck, N., Biland, A., Blank, M., Bretz, T., Bruegge, K., Bulinski, M., Buss, J., Doerr, M., Dorner, D., Hildebrand, D., Iotov, R., Klinger, M., Mannheim, K., Mueller, S. Achim, Neise, D., Neronov, A., Nöthe, M., Paravac, A., Rhode, W., Sedlaczek, K., Shukla, A., Sliusar, V., Tani, L., Theissen, F., Walter, R., Collaborators, MWL, Pulido, J. Acosta, Filippenko, A. V., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Larionov, V. M., Max-Moerbeck, W., Raiteri, C. M., Readhead, A. C. S., Šegon, M., Villata, M., and Zheng, W.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Extreme High-frequency BL~Lacs (EHBL) feature their synchrotron peak of the broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) at $\nu_{\rm s} \geq $10$^{17}$\,Hz. The BL~Lac object 1ES~2344+514 was included in the EHBL family because of its impressive shift of the synchrotron peak in 1996. During the following years, the source appeared to be in a low state without showing any extreme behaviours. In August 2016, 1ES~2344+514 was detected with the ground-based $\gamma$-ray telescope FACT during a high $\gamma$-ray state, triggering multi-wavelength (MWL) observations. We studied the MWL light curves of 1ES~2344+514 during the 2016 flaring state, using data from radio to VHE $\gamma$ rays taken with OVRO, KAIT, KVA, NOT, some telescopes of the GASP-WEBT collaboration at the Teide, Crimean, and St. Petersburg observatories, \textit{Swift}-UVOT, \textit{Swift}-XRT, \textit{Fermi}-LAT, FACT and MAGIC. With simultaneous observations of the flare, we built the broadband SED and studied it in the framework of a leptonic and an hadronic model. The VHE $\gamma$-ray observations show a flux level of 55\% of the Crab Nebula flux above 300\,GeV, similar to the historical maximum of 1995. The combination of MAGIC and \textit{Fermi}-LAT spectra provides an unprecedented characterization of the inverse-Compton peak for this object during a flaring episode. The $\Gamma$ index of the intrinsic spectrum in the VHE $\gamma$-ray band is $2.04\pm0.12_{\rm stat}\pm0.15_{\rm sys}$. We find the source in an extreme state with a shift of the position of the synchrotron peak to frequencies above or equal to $10^{18}$\,Hz, Comment: Accepted in MNRAS. Corresponding authors: M. Manganaro, A. Arbet Engels, D. Dorner
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

41. Testing two-component models on very-high-energy gamma-ray emitting BL Lac objects

Author: MAGIC Collaboration, Acciari, V. A., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Baack, D., Babić, A., Banerjee, B., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., González, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bellizzi, L., Bernardini, E., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bošnjak, Ž., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Ceribella, G., Cerruti, M., Chai, Y., Chilingarian, A., Cikota, S., Colak, S. M., Colin, U., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Amico, G., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Espiñeira, E. Do Souto, Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fattorini, A., Ferrara, G., Foffano, L., Fonseca, M. V., Font, L., Fruck, C., Fukami, S., López, R. J. García, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinović, N., Green, D., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Herrera, J., Hoang, J., Hrupec, D., Hütten, M., Inada, T., Inoue, S., Ishio, K., Iwamura, Y., Jouvin, L., Kajiwara, Y., Karjalainen, M., Kerszberg, D., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., López, M., López-Coto, R., López-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Maggio, C., Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mannheim, K., Maraschi, L., Mariotti, M., Martínez, M., Mazin, D., Mender, S., Mićanović, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Minev, M., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Moretti, E., Munar-Adrover, P., Neustroev, V., Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Ninci, D., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nogués, L., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Otero-Santos, J., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletić, L., Peñil, P., Peresano, M., Persic, M., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Puljak, I., Rhode, W., Ribó, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Saha, L., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Satalecka, K., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Šnidarić, I., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Surić, T., Takahashi, M., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzić, T., Teshima, M., Torres-Albà, N., Tosti, L., van Scherpenberg, J., Vanzo, G., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Will, M., Zarić, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., Arcaro, C., Ammando, F. D', de Palma, F., Hodges, M., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Max-Moerbeck, W., Readhead, A. C. S., Reeves, R., Takalo, L., Reinthal, R., Jormanainen, J., Wierda, F., Wagner, S. M., Berdyugin, A., Nabizadeh, A., Sheshvan, N. Talebpour, Oksanen, A., Bachev, R., Strigachev, A., and Kehusmaa, P.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Context. It has become evident that one-zone synchrotron self-Compton models are not always adequate for very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray emitting blazars. While two-component models are performing better, they are difficult to constrain due to the large number of free parameters. Aims. In this work, we make a first attempt to take into account the observational constraints from Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data, long-term light curves (radio, optical, and X-rays) and optical polarisation to limit the parameter space for a two-component model and test if it can still reproduce the observed spectral energy distribution (SED) of the blazars. Methods. We selected five TeV BL Lac objects based on the availability of VHE gamma-ray and optical polarisation data. We collected constraints for the jet parameters from VLBI observations. We evaluated the contributions of the two components to the optical flux by means of decomposition of long-term radio and optical light curves as well as modeling of the optical polarisation variability of the objects. We selected eight epochs for these five objects, based on the variability observed at VHE gamma rays, for which we constructed the SEDs that we then modeled with a two-component model. Results. We found parameter sets which can reproduce the broadband SED of the sources in the framework of two-component models considering all available observational constraints from VLBI observations. Moreover, the constraints obtained from the long-term behavior of the sources in the lower energy bands could be used to determine the region where the emission in each band originates. Finally, we attempted to use optical polarisation data to shed new light on the behavior of the two components in the optical band. Our observationally constrained two zone model allows explanation of the entire SED from radio to VHE with two co-located emission regions.
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

42. A decade of multi-wavelength observations of the TeV blazar 1ES 1215+303: Extreme shift of the synchrotron peak frequency and long-term optical-gamma-ray flux increase

Author: Valverde, Janeth, Horan, Deirdre, Bernard, Denis, Fegan, Stephen, Abeysekara, A. U., Archer, A., Benbow, W., Bird, R., Brill, A., Brose, R., Buchovecky, M., Buckley, J. H., Christiansen, J. L., Cui, W., Falcone, A., Feng, Q., Finley, J. P., Fortson, L., Furniss, A., Gent, A., Gillanders, G. H., Giuri, C., Gueta, O., Hanna, D., Hassan, T., Hervet, O., Holder, J., Hughes, G., Humensky, T. B., Kaaret, P., Kelley-Hoskins, N., Kertzman, M., Kieda, D., Krause, M., Krennrich, F., Lang, M. J., Maier, G., Moriarty, P., Mukherjee, R., Nieto, D., Nievas-Rosillo, M., O'Brien, S., Ong, R. A., Otte, A. N., Park, N., Petrashyk, A., Pfrang, K., Pichel, A., Pohl, M., Prado, R. R., Pueschel, E., Quinn, J., Ragan, K., Reynolds, P. T., Ribeiro, D., Richards, G. T., Roache, E., Sadeh, I., Santander, M., Scott, S. S., Sembroski, G. H., Shahinyan, K., Shang, R., Sushch, I., Vassiliev, V. V., Weinstein, A., Wells, R. M., Wilcox, P., Wilhelm, A., Williams, D. A., Williamson, T. J, Noto, Giuliana, Edwards, P. G., Piner, B. G., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Hovatta, T., Jormanainen, J., Lindfors, E., Nilsson, K., Takalo, L., Kovalev, Y. Y., Lister, M. L., Pushkarev, A. B., Savolainen, T., Kiehlmann, S., Max-Moerbeck, W., Readhead, A. C. S., Lähteenmäki, A., and Tornikoski, M.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: Blazars are known for their variability on a wide range of timescales at all wavelengths. Most studies of TeV gamma-ray blazars focus on short timescales, especially during flares. With a decade of observations from the Fermi-LAT and VERITAS, we present an extensive study of the long-term multi-wavelength radio-to-gamma-ray flux-density variability, with the addition of a couple of short-time radio-structure and optical polarization observations of the blazar 1ES 1215+303 (z=0.130), with a focus on its gamma-ray emission from 100 MeV to 30 TeV. Multiple strong GeV gamma-ray flares, a long-term increase in the gamma-ray and optical flux baseline and a linear correlation between these two bands are observed over the ten-year period. Typical HBL behaviors are identified in the radio morphology and broadband spectrum of the source. Three stationary features in the innermost jet are resolved by VLBA at 43.1, 22.2, and 15.3 GHz. We employ a two-component synchrotron self-Compton model to describe different flux states of the source, including the epoch during which an extreme shift in energy of the synchrotron peak frequency from infrared to soft X-rays is observed., Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

43. Unravelling the complex behavior of Mrk 421 with simultaneous X-ray and VHE observations during an extreme flaring activity in April 2013

Author: MAGIC collaboration, Acciari, V. A., Ansoldi, S., Antonelli, L. A., Engels, A. Arbet, Baack, D., Babic, A., Banerjee, B., de Almeida, U. Barres, Barrio, J. A., Gonzalez, J. Becerra, Bednarek, W., Bellizzi, L., Bernardini, E., Berti, A., Besenrieder, J., Bhattacharyya, W., Bigongiari, C., Biland, A., Blanch, O., Bonnoli, G., Bosnjak, Z., Busetto, G., Carosi, R., Ceribella, G., Cerruti, M., Chai, Y., Chilingarian, A., Cikota, S., Colak, S. M., Colin, U., Colombo, E., Contreras, J. L., Cortina, J., Covino, S., D'Elia, V., Da Vela, P., Dazzi, F., De Angelis, A., De Lotto, B., Del Puppo, F., Delfino, M., Delgado, J., Depaoli, D., Di Pierro, F., Di Venere, L., Espineira, E. Do Souto, Prester, D. Dominis, Donini, A., Dorner, D., Doro, M., Elsaesser, D., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Fattorini, A., Ferrara, G., Foffano, L., Fonseca, M. V., Font, L., Fruck, C., Fukami, S., Lopez, R. J. Garcia, Garczarczyk, M., Gasparyan, S., Gaug, M., Giglietto, N., Giordano, F., Gliwny, P., Godinovic, N., Green, D., Hadasch, D., Hahn, A., Herrera, J., Hoang, J., Hrupec, D., Hutten, M., Inada, T., Inoue, S., Ishio, K., Iwamura, Y., Jouvin, L., Kajiwara, Y., Kerszberg, D., Kobayashi, Y., Kubo, H., Kushida, J., Lamastra, A., Lelas, D., Leone, F., Lindfors, E., Lombardi, S., Longo, F., Lopez, M., Lopez-Coto, R., Lopez-Oramas, A., Loporchio, S., Fraga, B. Machado de Oliveira, Maggio, C., Majumdar, P., Makariev, M., Mallamaci, M., Maneva, G., Manganaro, M., Mannheim, K., Maraschi, L., Mariotti, M., Martinez, M., Mazin, D., Mender, S., Micanovic, S., Miceli, D., Miener, T., Minev, M., Miranda, J. M., Mirzoyan, R., Molina, E., Moralejo, A., Morcuende, D., Moreno, V., Moretti, E., Munar-Adrover, P., Neustroev, V., Nigro, C., Nilsson, K., Ninci, D., Nishijima, K., Noda, K., Nogues, L., Nozaki, S., Ohtani, Y., Oka, T., Otero-Santos, J., Palatiello, M., Paneque, D., Paoletti, R., Paredes, J. M., Pavletic, L., Penil, P., Peresano, M., Persic, M., Moroni, P. G. Prada, Prandini, E., Puljak, I., Rhode, W., Ribo, M., Rico, J., Righi, C., Rugliancich, A., Saha, L., Sahakyan, N., Saito, T., Sakurai, S., Satalecka, K., Schleicher, B., Schmidt, K., Schweizer, T., Sitarek, J., Snidaric, I., Sobczynska, D., Spolon, A., Stamerra, A., Strom, D., Strzys, M., Suda, Y., Suric, T., Takahashi, M., Tavecchio, F., Temnikov, P., Terzic, T., Teshima, M., Torres-Alba, N., Tosti, L., van Scherpenberg, J., Vanzo, G., Acosta, M. Vazquez, Ventura, S., Verguilov, V., Vigorito, C. F., Vitale, V., Vovk, I., Will, M., Zaric, D., groups, Other, Petropoulou, M., Finke, J., D'Ammando, F., Balokovic, M., Madejski, G., Mori, K., Puccetti, Simonetta, Leto, C., Perri, M., Verrecchia, F., Villata, M., Raiteri, C. M., Agudo, I., Bachev, R., Berdyugin, A., Blinov, D. A., Chanishvili, R., Chen, W. P., Chigladze, R., Damljanovic, G., Eswaraiah, C., Grishina, T. S., Ibryamov, S., Jordan, B., Jorstad, S. G., Joshi, M., Kopatskaya, E. N., Kurtanidze, O. M., Kurtanidze, S. O., Larionova, E. G., Larionova, L. V., Larionov, V. M., Latev, G., Lin, H. C., Marscher, A. P., Mokrushina, A. A., Morozova, D. A., Nikolashvili, M. G., Semkov, E., Smith, P. S., Strigachev, A., Troitskaya, Yu. V., Troitsky, I. S., Vince, O., Barnes, J., Guever, T., Moody, J. W., Sadun, A. C., Hovatta, T., Richards, J. L., Max-Moerbeck, W., Readhead, A. C. R., Lahteenmaki, A., Tornikoski, M., Tammi, J., Ramakrishnan, V., and Reinthal, R.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We report on a multi-band variability and correlation study of the TeV blazar Mrk 421 during an exceptional flaring activity observed from 2013 April 11 to 2013 April 19. The study uses, among others, data from GASP-WEBT, Swift, NuSTAR, Fermi-LAT, VERITAS, and MAGIC. The large blazar activity, and the 43 hours of simultaneous NuSTAR and MAGIC/VERITAS observations, permitted variability studies on 15 minute time bins, and over three X-ray bands (3-7 keV, 7-30 keV and 30-80 keV) and three very-high-energy (>0.1 TeV, hereafter VHE) gamma-ray bands (0.2-0.4 TeV, 0.4-0.8 TeV and >0.8 TeV). We detected substantial flux variations on multi-hour and sub-hour timescales in all the X-ray and VHE gamma-ray bands. The characteristics of the sub-hour flux variations are essentially energy-independent, while the multi-hour flux variations can have a strong dependence on the energy of the X-ray and the VHE gamma rays. The three VHE bands and the three X-ray bands are positively correlated with no time-lag, but the strength and the characteristics of the correlation changes substantially over time and across energy bands. Our findings favour multi-zone scenarios for explaining the achromatic/chromatic variability of the fast/slow components of the light curves, as well as the changes in the flux-flux correlation on day-long timescales. We interpret these results within a magnetic reconnection scenario, where the multi-hour flux variations are dominated by the combined emission from various plasmoids of different sizes and velocities, while the sub-hour flux variations are dominated by the emission from a single small plasmoid moving across the magnetic reconnection layer., Comment: 46 pages, 17 figures, 9 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ Supplements
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

44. Multiwavelength behaviour of the blazar 3C279: decade-long study from $\gamma$-ray to radio

Author: Larionov, V. M., Jorstad, S. G., Marscher, A. P., Villata, M., Raiteri, C. M., Smith, P. S., Agudo, I., Savchenko, S. S., Morozova, D. A., Acosta-Pulido, J. A., Aller, M. F., Aller, H. D., Andreeva, T. S., Arkharov, A. A., Bachev, R., Bonnoli, G., Borman, G. A., Bozhilov, V., Calcidese, P., Carnerero, M. I., Carosati, D., Casadio, C., Chen, W. -P., Damljanovic, G., Dementyev, A. V., Di Paola, A., Frasca, A., Fuentes, A., Gómez, J. L., Gónzalez-Morales, P., Giunta, A., Grishina, T. S., Gurwell, M. A., Hagen-Thorn, V. A., Hovatta, T., Ibryamov, S., Joshi, M., Kiehlmann, S., Kim, J. -Y., Kimeridze, G. N., Kopatskaya, E. N., Kovalev, Yu. A., Kovalev, Y. Y., Kurtanidze, O. M., Kurtanidze, S. O., Lähteenmäki, A., Lázaro, C., Larionova, L. V., Larionova, E. G., Leto, G., Marchini, A., Matsumoto, K., Mihov, B., Minev, M., Mingaliev, M. G., Mirzaqulov, D., Dimitrova, R. V. Muñoz, Myserlis, I., Nikiforova, A. A., Nikolashvili, M. G., Nizhelsky, N. A., Ovcharov, E., Pressburger, L. D., Rakhimov, I. A., Righini, S., Rizzi, N., Sadakane, K., Sadun, A. C., Samal, M. R., Sanchez, R. Z., Semkov, E., Sergeev, S. G., Sigua, L. A., Slavcheva-Mihova, L., Sola, P., Sotnikova, Yu. V., Strigachev, A., Thum, C., Traianou, E., Troitskaya, Yu. V., Troitsky, I. S., Tsybulev, P. G., Vasilyev, A. A., Vince, O., Weaver, Z. R., Williamson, K. E., and Zhekanis, G. V.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: We report the results of decade-long (2008-2018) $\gamma$-ray to 1 GHz radio monitoring of the blazar 3C 279, including GASP/WEBT, $\it{Fermi}$ and $\it{Swift}$ data, as well as polarimetric and spectroscopic data. The X-ray and $\gamma$-ray light curves correlate well, with no delay > 3 hours, implying general co-spatiality of the emission regions. The $\gamma$-ray-optical flux-flux relation changes with activity state, ranging from a linear to a more complex dependence. The behaviour of the Stokes parameters at optical and radio wavelengths, including 43 GHz VLBA images, supports either a predominantly helical magnetic field or motion of the radiating plasma along a spiral path. Apparent speeds of emission knots range from 10 to 37c, with the highest values requiring bulk Lorentz factors close to those needed to explain $\gamma$-ray variability on very short time scales. The Mg II emission line flux in the `blue' and `red' wings correlates with the optical synchrotron continuum flux density, possibly providing a variable source of seed photons for inverse Compton scattering. In the radio bands we find progressive delays of the most prominent light curve maxima with decreasing frequency, as expected from the frequency dependence of the $\tau=1$ surface of synchrotron self-absorption. The global maximum in the 86 GHz light curve becomes less prominent at lower frequencies, while a local maximum, appearing in 2014, strengthens toward decreasing frequencies, becoming pronounced at $\sim5$ GHz. These tendencies suggest different Doppler boosting of stratified radio-emitting zones in the jet., Comment: 21 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

45. Calibrating the power of relativistic jets

Author: Foschini, L., Lister, M. L., Hovatta, T., Kovalev, Y. Y., Romano, P., Vercellone, S., Lähteenmäki, A., Savolainen, T. K., Tornikoski, M., Angelakis, E., Berton, M., Braito, V., Ciroi, S., Kadler, M., and Burd, P. R.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract: There are several methods to calculate the radiative and kinetic power of relativistic jets, but their results can differ by one or two orders of magnitude. Therefore, it is necessary to perform a calibration of the jet power, to understand the reasons for these differences (whether wrong hypotheses or intrinsic source variability), and if it is possible to converge to a reliable measurement of this physical quantity. We present preliminary results of a project aimed at calibrating the power of relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) and X-ray binaries (XRB). We started by selecting all the AGN associations with known redshift in the Fourth Fermi LAT Gamma-Ray Catalog (4FGL). We then calculated the radiative and/or kinetic powers from available data or we extracted this information from literature. We compare the values obtained for overlapping samples and highlight early conclusions., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. Poster presented at High Energy Phenomena in Relativistic Outflows (HEPRO) VII, Barcelona (Spain), July 9-12, 2019. Accepted for publication on Proceedings of Science (PoS)
Published: 2019

46. Investigating the multiwavelength behaviour of the flat spectrum radio quasar CTA 102 during 2013-2017

Author: D'Ammando, F., Raiteri, C. M., Villata, M., Acosta-Pulido, J. A., Agudo, I., Arkharov, A. A., Bachev, R., Baida, G. V., Benitez, E., Borman, G. A., Boschin, W., Bozhilov, V., Butuzova, M. S., Calcidese, P., Carnerero, M. I., Carosati, D., Casadio, C., Castro-Segura, N., Chen, W. -P., Damljanovic, G., Di Paola, A., Echevarria, J., Efimova, N. V., Ehgamberdiev, Sh. A., Espinosa, C., Fuentes, A., Giunta, A., Gomez, J. L., Grishina, T. S., Gurwell, M. A., Hiriart, D., Jermak, H., Jordan, B., Jorstad, S. G., Joshi, M., Kimeridze, G. N., Kopatskaya, E. N., Kuratov, K., Kurtanidze, O. M., Kurtanidze, S. O., Lahteenmaki, A., Larionov, V. M., Larionova, E. G., Larionova, L. V., Lazaro, C., Lin, C. S., Malmrose, M. P., Marscher, A. P., Matsumoto, K., McBreen, B., Michel, R., Mihov, B., Minev, M., Mirzaqulov, D. O., Molina, S. N., Moody, J. W., Morozova, D. A., Nazarov, S. V., Nikiforova, A. A., Nikolashvili, M. G., Ohlert, J. M., Okhmat, N., Ovcharov, E., Pinna, F., Polakis, T. A., Protasio, C., Pursimo, T., Redondo-Lorenzo, F. J., Rizzi, N., Rodriguez-Coira, G., Sadakane, K., Sadun, A. C., Samal, M. R., Savchenko, S. S., Semkov, E., Sigua, L., Skiff, B. A., Slavcheva-Mihova, L., Smith, P. S., Steele, I. A., Strigachev, A., Tammi, J., Thum, C., Tornikoski, M., Troitskaya, Yu. V., Troitsky, I. S., Vasilyev, A. A., Vince, O., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Max-Moerbeck, W., Readhead, A. C. S., Reeves, R., Pearson, T. J., Mufakharov, T., Sotnikova, Yu. V., and Mingaliev, M. G.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We present a multiwavelength study of the flat-spectrum radio quasar CTA 102 during 2013-2017. We use radio-to-optical data obtained by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope, 15 GHz data from the Owens Valley Radio Observatory, 91 and 103 GHz data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, near-infrared data from the Rapid Eye Monitor telescope, as well as data from the Swift (optical-UV and X-rays) and Fermi ($\gamma$ rays) satellites to study flux and spectral variability and the correlation between flux changes at different wavelengths. Unprecedented $\gamma$-ray flaring activity was observed during 2016 November-2017 February, with four major outbursts. A peak flux of (2158 $\pm$ 63)$\times$10$^{-8}$ ph cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$, corresponding to a luminosity of (2.2 $\pm$ 0.1)$\times$10$^{50}$ erg s$^{-1}$, was reached on 2016 December 28. These four $\gamma$-ray outbursts have corresponding events in the near-infrared, optical, and UV bands, with the peaks observed at the same time. A general agreement between X-ray and $\gamma$-ray activity is found. The $\gamma$-ray flux variations show a general, strong correlation with the optical ones with no time lag between the two bands and a comparable variability amplitude. This $\gamma$-ray/optical relationship is in agreement with the geometrical model that has successfully explained the low-energy flux and spectral behaviour, suggesting that the long-term flux variations are mainly due to changes in the Doppler factor produced by variations of the viewing angle of the emitting regions. The difference in behaviour between radio and higher energy emission would be ascribed to different viewing angles of the jet regions producing their emission., Comment: 24 pages, 18 figures, and 4 tables. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

47. The presence of interstellar scintillation in the 15 GHz interday variability of 1158 OVRO-monitored blazars

Author: Koay, J. Y., Jauncey, D. L., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., Bignall, H. E., Max-Moerbeck, W., Pearson, T. J., Readhead, A. C. S., Reeves, R., Reynolds, C., and Vedantham, H.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We have conducted the first systematic search for interday variability in a large sample of extragalactic radio sources at 15 GHz. From the sample of 1158 radio-selected blazars monitored over a $\sim$10 year span by the Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40-m telescope, we identified 20 sources exhibiting significant flux density variations on 4-day timescales. The sky distribution of the variable sources is strongly dependent on the line-of-sight Galactic H$\alpha$ intensities from the Wisconsin H$\alpha$ Mapper Survey, demonstrating the contribution of interstellar scintillation (ISS) to their interday variability. 21% of sources observed through sight-lines with H$\alpha$ intensities larger than 10 rayleighs exhibit significant ISS persistent over the $\sim$10 year period. The fraction of scintillators is potentially larger when considering less significant variables missed by our selection criteria, due to ISS intermittency. This study demonstrates that ISS is still important at 15 GHz, particularly through strongly scattered sight-lines of the Galaxy. Of the 20 most significant variables, 11 are observed through the Orion-Eridanus superbubble, photoionized by hot stars of the Orion OB1 association. The high-energy neutrino source TXS0506$+$056 is observed through this region, so ISS must be considered in any interpretation of its short-term radio variability. J0616$-$1041 appears to exhibit large $\sim$20% interday flux density variations, comparable in magnitude to that of the very rare class of extreme, intrahour scintillators that includes PKS0405$-$385, J1819$+$3845 and PKS1257$-$326; this needs to be confirmed by higher cadence follow-up observations., Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

48. Studying the Extreme Behaviour of 1ES 2344+51.4

Author: Arbet-Engels, A., Manganaro, M., Cerruti, M., Ramazani, V. Fallah, Dorner, D., Sliusar, V., Filippenko, A. V., Hovatta, T., Larionov, V., Acosta-Pulido, J. A., Raiteri, C. M., and Zheng, W.
Subjects: Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: The BL Lac type object 1ES 2344+51.4 (redshift $z=0.044$) was one of the first sources to be included in the extreme high-peaked BL Lac (EHBL) family. EHBLs are characterised by a broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) featuring the synchrotron peak above $\sim 10^{17}$ Hz. From previous studies of 1ES 2344+51.4 in the very-high-energy (VHE, $>$100 GeV) gamma-ray range, its inverse Compton (IC) peak is expected around 200 GeV. 1ES 2344+51.4 was first detected in the VHE range by Whipple in 1995 during a very bright outburst showing around 60 % of the flux of the Crab Nebula above 350 GeV. In 1996, during another flare in the X-ray band, observations with Beppo-SAX revealed a large 0.1-10 keV flux variability on timescales of a few hours and an impressive frequency shift of the synchrotron peak to above $10^{18}$ Hz. Later on, this extreme behaviour of the source motivated several multiwavelength campaigns, during most of which the source appeared to be in a low state and showing no clear signs of "extremeness". In August 2016, FACT detected 1ES 2344+51.4 in a high state and triggered multiwavelength observations. The VHE observations show a flux level similar to the historical maximum of 1995. The combination of MAGIC, FACT, and Fermi-LAT spectra provides an unprecedented characterisation of the IC peak. It is the first time that simultaneous HE and VHE data are presented for this object during a flaring episode. We find an atypically hard spectrum in the VHE $\gamma$-rays as well as a hard X-ray spectrum, revealing a renewed extreme behaviour., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2019), July 24th-August 1st, 2019. Madison, WI, U.S.A
Published: 2019

49. MOJAVE. XVII. Jet Kinematics and Parent Population Properties of Relativistically Beamed Radio-Loud Blazars

Author: Lister, M. L., Homan, D. C., Hovatta, T., Kellermann, K. I., Kiehlmann, S., Kovalev, Y. Y., Max-Moerbeck, W., Pushkarev, A. B., Readhead, A. C. S., Ros, E., and Savolainen, T.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract: We present results from a parsec-scale jet kinematics study of 409 bright radio-loud AGNs based on 15 GHz VLBA data obtained between 1994 August 31 and 2016 December 26 as part of the 2cm VLBA survey and MOJAVE programs. We tracked 1744 individual bright features in 382 jets over at least five epochs. A majority (59%) of the best-sampled jet features showed evidence of accelerated motion at the >3sigma level. Although most features within a jet typically have speeds within ~40% of a characteristic median value, we identified 55 features in 42 jets that had unusually slow pattern speeds, nearly all of which lie within 4 pc (100 pc de-projected) of the core feature. Our results combined with other speeds from the literature indicate a strong correlation between apparent jet speed and synchrotron peak frequency, with the highest jet speeds being found only in low-peaked AGNs. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we find best fit parent population parameters for a complete sample of 174 quasars above 1.5 Jy at 15 GHz. Acceptable fits are found with a jet population that has a simple unbeamed power law luminosity function incorporating pure luminosity evolution, and a power law Lorentz factor distribution ranging from 1.25 to 50 with slope -1.4 +- 0.2. The parent jets of the brightest radio quasars have a space density of 261 +- 19 Gpc$^{-3}$ and unbeamed 15 GHz luminosities above ~$10^{24.5}$ W/Hz, consistent with FR II class radio galaxies., Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, 7 tables; accepted to the Astrophysical Journal; full electronic tables are available from the preprint source
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

50. RoboPol: A four-channel optical imaging polarimeter

Author: Ramaprakash, A. N., Rajarshi, C. V., Das, H. K., Khodade, P., Modi, D., Panopoulou, G., Maharana, S., Blinov, D., Angelakis, E., Casadio, C., Fuhrmann, L., Hovatta, T., Kiehlmann, S., King, O. G., Kylafis, N., Kougentakis, A., Kus, A., Mahabal, A., Marecki, A., Myserlis, I., Paterakis, G., Paleologou, E., Liodakis, I., Papadakis, I., Papamastorakis, I., Pavlidou, V., Pazderski, E., Pearson, T. J., Readhead, A. C. S., Reig, P., Slowikowska, A., Tassis, K., and Zensus, J. A.
Subjects: Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract: We present the design and performance of RoboPol, a four-channel optical polarimeter operating at the Skinakas Observatory in Crete, Greece. RoboPol is capable of measuring both relative linear Stokes parameters $q$ and $u$ (and the total intensity $I$) in one sky exposure. Though primarily used to measure the polarization of point sources in the R-band, the instrument features additional filters (B, V and I), enabling multi-wavelength imaging polarimetry over a large field of view (13.6' $\times$ 13.6'). We demonstrate the accuracy and stability of the instrument throughout its five years of operation. Best performance is achieved within the central region of the field of view and in the R band. For such measurements the systematic uncertainty is below 0.1% in fractional linear polarization, $p$ (0.05% maximum likelihood). Throughout all observing seasons the instrumental polarization varies within 0.1% in $p$ and within 1$^\circ$ in polarization angle., Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

Catalog

Books, media, physical & digital resources

See catalog results

Searchworks

Select search scope, currently: Articles Catalog books, media & more in Jio Institute collections Articles journal articles & other e-resources

Search

Search Constraints

Refine your results

Search Limiters

Topic

Publication Year Range

Language

Publication Type

Journal

Region

Database

Publisher

951 results on '"Hovatta, T"'

Search Results

Catalog

Select search scope, currently: Articles

Catalog

books, media & more in Jio Institute collections

Articles

journal articles & other e-resources