A proton synchrotron blazar model for flaring in Markarian 501

By A. Muecke, R. Protheroe. 2000

293 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The spectral energy distribution (SED) of gamma-ray (γ-ray) loud BL Lac objects typically has a double-humped appearance usually interpreted in terms of synchrotron self-Compton models. In proton blazar models, the SED is instead explained in terms of acceleration of protons and subsequent cascading. We discuss a variation of the synchrotron proton blazar model, first proposed by Mucke and Protheroe (Proc. Workshop GeV–TeV Astrophysics: Toward a Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope VI, Snowbird, Utah, submitted for publication), in which the low energy part of the SED is mainly proton synchrotron radiation by electrons co-accelerated with protons, which produce the high energy part of the SED mainly as synchrotron radiation. As an approximation, we assume non-relativistic shock acceleration which could apply if the bulk of the plasma in the jet frame were non-relativistic. Our results may therefore change if a relativistic equation of state was used. We consider the case where the maximum energy of the accelerated protons is above the threshold for pion photoproduction interactions on the synchrotron photons of the low energy part of the SED. Using a Monte Carlo/numerical technique to simulate the interactions and subsequent cascading of the accelerated protons, we are able to fit the high-energy γ-ray portion of the observed SED of Markarian 501 during the April 1997 flare. We find that the emerging cascade spectra initiated by γ-rays from π0 decay and by e± from μ± decay turn out to be relatively featureless. Synchrotron radiation produced by μ± from π± decay, and even more importantly by protons, and subsequent synchrotron-pair cascading, is able to reproduce well the high energy part of the SED. For this fit, we find that synchrotron radiation by protons dominates the TeV emission, pion photoproduction being less important with the consequence that we predict a lower neutrino flux than in other proton blazar models.

Subfields: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5dc63a001c14be4dbd692b7e3918e4a892bf4648

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Citations in the corpus

Canonical high power blazars (2009, background): “…one resulting from cascades initiated ⋆ Email: gabriele.ghisellini@brera.inaf.it by ultra–relativistic protons (Mannheim 1993; Mücke et al. 2003; Böttcher 2007); iii) Ultrarelativistic protons emit by the proton– synchrotron process at high energies (Aharonian 2000; Mücke & Protheroe 2001).”
Leptohadronic single-zone models for the electromagnetic and neutrino emission of TXS 0506+056 (2018, background): “…may explain correlated electromagnetic and neutrino emission in blazars is the one-zone, lepto-hadronic model (see e.g. Mannheim 1993; Aharonian 2000; Mücke & Protheroe 2001), where a magnetized compact region inside the relativistic jet carries a population of relativistic electrons and protons.”
Neutral Beams from Blazar Jets (2002, background): “Detectable synchrotron emission at TeV energies could be radiated by ultrarelativistic protons and ions, but this requires extremely strong magnetic fields, 20–100 G in BL Lac objects (Aharonian 2000; Mücke & Protheroe 2001).”
BLAZARS AS ULTRA-HIGH-ENERGY COSMIC-RAY SOURCES: IMPLICATIONS FOR TeV GAMMA-RAY OBSERVATIONS (2011, background): “In the proton synchrotron blazar model (Aharonian 2000; Mücke & Protheroe 2001; Mücke et al. 2003), which is typically viable for high-peaked BL Lac objects, proton synchrotron radiation is emitted up to energiesεMs ≈ 4δ1/(1+ z) TeV (in the limit that the maximum energy is determined by the…”
Synchrotron Self-Compton Analysis of TeV X-Ray-Selected BL Lacertae Objects (2008, background): “In hadronic models (see, e.g., Mannheim & Biermann 1992; Mücke & Protheroe 2001; Atoyan & Dermer 2003), the low-energy component is still interpreted as synchrotron emission from relativistic leptons, but the high energy component originates from proton synchrotron or photopion production…”
Parameterization of γ, epm, and Neutrino Spectra Produced by p-p Interaction in Astronomical Environments (2006, unknown): “For some AGN jets, the above scenario does not work well, and p − p interaction has been proposed as an alternative mechanism (Mücke & Protheroe 2001; Mücke et al. 2003; Böttcher & Reimer 2004).”