High Energy Emission from AGN and Unified Schemes
Astrophysics
2007-05-23 v1
Abstract
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are now known to be strong gamma-ray emitters. After briefly describing AGN classification and the main ideas behind unified schemes, I summarize the main properties of blazars (that is BL Lacs and flat-spectrum radio quasars) and their connection with relativistic beaming. Finally, I address the question of why blazars, despite being extreme and very rare objects, are the only AGN detected at high (E > 100 MeV) energies, and touch upon the relevance of TeV astronomy for AGN research.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9901130,
title = {High Energy Emission from AGN and Unified Schemes},
author = {Paolo Padovani},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9901130},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
12 pages, 2 figures. Invited talk at the Vulcano Workshop "Frontier Objects in Astrophysics and Particle Physics", to appear in the proceedings. Postscript file also available at http://icarus.stsci.edu/~padovani/unif_papers.html