Synchrotron Self-Compton Analysis of TeV X-Ray-Selected BL Lacertae Objects

By J. Finke, C. Dermer, M. Boettcher. 2008

269 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We introduce a methodology for analysis of multiwavelength data from X-ray-selected BL Lac (XBL) objects detected in the TeV regime. By assuming that the radio-through-X-ray flux from XBLs is nonthermal synchrotron radiation emitted by isotropically distributed electrons in the randomly oriented magnetic field of a relativistic blazar jet, we obtain the electron spectrum. This spectrum is then used to deduce the synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) spectrum as a function of the Doppler factor, magnetic field, and variability timescale. The variability timescale is used to infer the comoving blob radius from light-travel time arguments, leaving only two parameters. With this approach, we accurately simulate the synchrotron and SSC spectra of flaring XBLs in the Thomson through Klein-Nishina regimes. Photoabsorption by interactions with internal jet radiation and the intergalactic background light (IBL) is included. Doppler factors, magnetic fields, and absolute jet powers are obtained by fitting the H.E.S.S. and Swift data of the recent giant TeV flare observed from PKS 2155–304. For the H.E.S.S. and Swift data from 2006 July 28 and 30, respectively, Doppler factors ≳60 and absolute jet powers ≳1046 ergs s−1 are required for a synchrotron/SSC model to give a good fit to the data, for a low intensity of the IBL and a ratio of 10 times more energy in hadrons than nonthermal electrons. Fits are also made to a TeV flare observed in 2001 from Mrk 421 which require Doppler factors ≳30 and jet powers ≳1045 ergs s−1.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6e8f60138ab92e8df5fdf0744c09fcbc55ab944b

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Bing Zhang
2. F. Tavecchio
3. D. Giannios
4. A. Strong
5. E. Orlando
6. C. Dermer
7. H. Krawczynski
8. Y. Kovalev

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. F. Tavecchio
2. A. Strong
3. E. Orlando
4. C. Dermer
5. D. Giannios
6. L. Maraschi
7. Y. Kovalev
8. H. Krawczynski

Citations in the corpus

• BLAZARS AS ULTRA-HIGH-ENERGY COSMIC-RAY SOURCES: IMPLICATIONS FOR TeV GAMMA-RAY OBSERVATIONS (2011, unknown): “…energies, and requires δ & 60 for PKS 2155-304 (Begelman et al. 2008) for the major July/August 2006 TeV flares (Aharonian et al. 2007a), and δ & 100 to be furthermore consistent with synchrotron/SSC model fitting for different models of the extragalactic background light (EBL; Finke et al. 2008).”
• FERMI DISCOVERY OF GAMMA-RAY EMISSION FROM NGC 1275 (2009, methodology): “First we consider a simple one-zone SSC model fit to theFermi data and contemporaneous radio data (blue dashed curve; see Finke et al. 2008 for details).”
• FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE VIEW OF THE CORE OF THE RADIO GALAXY CENTAURUS A (2010, background): “More precise modeling (Finke et al. 2008)387 gives the green curve in Fig.”
• INSIGHTS INTO THE HIGH-ENERGY γ-RAY EMISSION OF MARKARIAN 501 FROM EXTENSIVE MULTIFREQUENCY OBSERVATIONS IN THE FERMI ERA (2011, methodology): “Here we therefore adopt the ‘standard’ one-zone SSC model, which has had moderate success in accounting for the spectral and temporal properties of the TeV-emitting BL Lacs analyzed so far (e.g., Finke et al. 2008; Ghisellini et al. 2009a, and references therein).”
• FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE GAMMA-RAY DETECTION OF THE RADIO GALAXY M87 (2009, unknown): “The broad-band SED is fit with a homogeneous one-zone synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) jet model (Finke et al. 2008) assuming an angle to the line of sight,θ=10◦, and bulk Lorentz factor,Γb = 2.3 (Doppler factor,δ = 3.9), consistent with observations of apparent motions of>∼ 0.4c (Γb > 1.1) in the…”
• GAMMA-RAY STUDIES OF BLAZARS: SYNCHRO-COMPTON ANALYSIS OF FLAT SPECTRUM RADIO QUASARS (2008, methodology): “The total jet power in the stationary frame of the host galaxy is given by Pj = 2πR ′2 b βΓ 2cu′tot = Pj,par + Pj,B (83) (Celotti & Fabian 1993; Celotti et al. 2007; Finke et al. 2008), where u′tot is the total energy density in the jet, Pj,par is the jet power from particles, and Pj,B is the jet po”
• FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS OF MISALIGNED ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2010, result): “SEDs of FRI radio galaxies such as NGC 1275 (Abdo et al. 2009b) and M87 (Abdo et al. 2009c) are consistent with an SSC model with Γ (and δ) 3, which are much lower than typical values found in models of BL Lac objects (e.g., Costamante & Ghisellini 2002; Finke et al. 2008).”
• Reconnection-driven plasmoids in blazars: fast flares on a slow envelope (2012, background): “Furthermore, for the TeV photons to escape the source in PKS 2155 and Mrk 501 the emitting blob must have a Doppler boosting ofδ>∼50−100 towards the observer (Begelman et al. 2008; Finke et al. 2008; Mastichiadis & Moraitis 2008).”