English

A Method for Locating High Energy Dissipation Region in Blazar

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2018-06-13 v2

Abstract

The production site of gamma-rays in blazar jet is an unresolved problem. We present a method to locate gamma-ray emission region in the framework of one-zone emission model. From measurements of core-shift effect, the relation between the magnetic field strengths (BB') in the radio cores of jet and the distances (RR) of these radio cores from central supermassive black hole (SMBH) can be inferred. Therefore once the magnetic field strength in gamma-ray emission region (BdissB'_{\rm diss}) is obtained, one can use the relation of BB'-RR to derive the distance (RdissR_{\rm diss}) of gamma-ray emission region from SMBH. Here we evaluate the lower limit of BdissB'_{\rm diss} by using the criteria that the optical variability timescale tvart_{\rm var} should be longer or equal to the synchrotron radiation cooling timescale of the electrons that emit optical photons. We test the method with the observations of PSK 1510-089 and BL Lacertae, and derive Rdiss<0.15δD1/3(1+A)2/3 R_{\rm diss}<0.15\delta_{\rm D}^{1/3}(1+A)^{2/3}\ pc for PSK 1510-089 with tvart_{\rm var}\sim a few hours, and Rdiss<0.003δD1/3(1+A)2/3 R_{\rm diss}<0.003\delta_{\rm D}^{1/3}(1+A)^{2/3}\ pc for BL Lacertae with tvart_{\rm var}\sim a few minutes. Here δD\delta_{\rm D} is the Doppler factor and AA is the Compton dominance (i.e., the ratio of the Compton to the synchrotron peak luminosities).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1711.05939,
  title  = {A Method for Locating High Energy Dissipation Region in Blazar},
  author = {Dahai Yan and Qingwen Wu and Xuliang Fan and Jiancheng Wang and Li Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.05939},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

5 pages, 0 figures, accepted by ApJ