THE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION OF FERMI-DETECTED FLAT-SPECTRUM RADIO QUASARS

By M. Ajello, M. Shaw, R. Romani, C. Dermer, L. Costamante, O. King, W. Max-Moerbeck, A. Readhead, A. Reimer, J. Richards and 1 more. 2011

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Fermi has provided the largest sample of γ-ray-selected blazars to date. In this work we use a complete sample of flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) detected during the first year of operation to determine the luminosity function (LF) and its evolution with cosmic time. The number density of FSRQs grows dramatically up to redshift ∼0.5–2.0 and declines thereafter. The redshift of the peak in the density is luminosity dependent, with more luminous sources peaking at earlier times; thus the LF of γ-ray FSRQs follows a luminosity-dependent density evolution similar to that of radio-quiet active galactic nuclei. Also, using data from the Swift Burst Alert Telescope we derive the average spectral energy distribution (SED) of FSRQs in the 10 keV–300 GeV band and show that there is no correlation between the luminosity at the peak of the γ-ray emission component and its peak frequency. Using this luminosity-independent SED with the derived LF allows us to predict that the contribution of FSRQs to the Fermi isotropic γ-ray background is 9.3+1.6− 1.0% (±3% systematic uncertainty) in the 0.1–100 GeV band. Finally we determine the LF of unbeamed FSRQs, finding that FSRQs have an average Lorentz factor of γ = 11.7+3.3− 2.2, that most are seen within 5° of the jet axis, and that they represent only ∼0.1% of the parent population.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2a226c84caf7f4ade58c44244b777a9a05d8380e

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Citations in the corpus

THE COSMIC EVOLUTION OF FERMI BL LACERTAE OBJECTS (2013, methodology): “– 26 – imply a strong positive evolution for LSP objects of all luminosities as it is the case for FSRQs (see e.g. Ajello et al. 2012).”
THE FIRST FERMI-LAT CATALOG OF SOURCES ABOVE 10 GeV (2013, background): “…to the isotropic γ -ray background (IGRB; Abdo et al. 2010o), constrain the The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 209:34 (34pp), 2013 December Ackermann et al. evolutionary properties of blazars (Ajello et al. 2012b), and predict the number of sources detectable by future γ -ray instruments.”
SPECTROSCOPY OF THE LARGEST EVER γ-RAY-SELECTED BL LAC SAMPLE (2013, background): “The opportunity to advance our understanding of BLL evolution with the large, flux limited Fermi sample is important (Ajello et al. 2012b).”
THE THIRD CATALOG OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI DETECTED BY THE FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE (2015, background): “…2011c, 2015), first and second LAT AGN catalogs, respectively, have triggered numerous population studies (e.g., Ghisellini et al. 2009, 2012, 2013; Ajello et al. 2012; D’Abrusco et al. 2012; Massaro et al. 2012; Meyer et al. 2012; Padovani et al. 2012; Finke 2013; Giommi et al. 2013), provided…”
THE SPECTRUM OF ISOTROPIC DIFFUSE GAMMA-RAY EMISSION BETWEEN 100 MeV AND 820 GeV (2014, background): “…detection threshold for individual sources can in principle be estimated from a relatively firm empirical basis through an extrapolation of the observed flux distribution (e.g., Abdo et al. 2010c; Ajello et al. 2012, 2014), although a consensus has not yet been reached (e.g., Singal et al. 2012).”