Related papers: Thermal AGN Signatures in Blazars
We use data from the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to perform a statistical study on the mid-infrared (IR) properties of a large number ($\sim10^2$) of BL Lac objects --- low-luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) with a jet…
Although blazar variability is probably dominated by emission from relativistic jets, accretion disks should be present in all blazars. These disks produce emission over most of the electromagnetic spectrum; various unstable processes…
GRB spectra appear non-thermal, but recent observations of a few bursts with Fermi GBM have confirmed previous indications from BATSE of the presence of an underlying thermal component. Photospheric emission is indeed expected when the…
Blazars are jetted active galactic nuclei, with the jet aligned along the observer's line of sight. Their spectral energy distributions are dominated by non-thermal emission, with an underlying thermal component at optical/ultraviolet…
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are now known to be strong gamma-ray emitters. After briefly describing the different classes of AGN and the basic tenets of unified schemes, I discuss the role of blazars (that is BL Lacs and flat-spectrum…
A possible source of $\gamma$-ray photons observed from the jets of blazars is inverse Compton scattering by relativistic electrons of infrared seed photons from a hot, dusty torus in the nucleus. We use observations from the Spitzer Space…
Blazars constitute the most interesting and enigmatic class of extragalactic gamma-ray sources dominated by non-thermal emission. In this Letter, we show how the WISE infrared data make possible to identify a distinct region of the…
ISO provides a key new far-infrared window through which to observe the multi-wavelength spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of quasars and active galactic nuclei (AGN). It allows us, for the first time, to observe a substantial fraction…
The rapid accumulation of thermal infrared observations and shape models of asteroids has led to increased interest in thermophysical modeling. Most of these infrared observations are unresolved. We consider what fraction of an asteroid's…
We investigate the previously proposed possibility that multi-epoch broadband polarimetry could act as a complement or limited proxy for VLBI observations of blazars, in that the number of polarised emission components in the jet, and some…
Radio emission in blazars -- the aligned subset of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) -- is produced by synchrotron electrons moving relativistically in their jet's magnetic field. Under the assumption of some degree of uniformity of the field,…
The prompt emission of gamma-ray bursts has yet defied any simple explanation, despite the presence of a rich observational material and great theoretical efforts. Here we show that all the types of spectral evolution and spectral shapes…
Emission from blazar jets in the ultraviolet, optical, and infrared is polarized. If these low-energy photons were inverse-Compton scattered, the upscattered high-energy photons retain a fraction of the polarization. Current and future…
While observations in the radio band are providing essential information on the innermost structures of relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN), the recent detection by Fermi of gamma-ray emission from many hundreds of blazars…
The main goal of this thesis is to study the physical processes that can produce non-thermal emission at high energies in astrophysical objects capable to accelerate particles up to relativistic velocities. In particular, we have studied…
Popular internal shock models, developed to explain production of high energy flares in blazar jets, involve collisions between local overdensities of matter being ejected by a central engine and moving along the jet with different…
We have not identified for sure what is the mechanism launching, accelerating and collimating relativistic jets. The two most likely possibilities are the gravitational energy of the accreting matter or the rotational energy of a spinning…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) with relativistic jets are the most powerful persistent astrophysical sources of electromagnetic radiation in the Universe. Blazars are the most extreme subclass of AGN with jets directed along the line of sight…
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…
A two-component model of radio emission has been used to explain some radio observational properties of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and, in particular, of blazars. In this work, we extend the two-component idea to the $\gamma$-ray…