Related papers: "Blobs" in blazar jets
Powerful radio sources and quasars emit relativistic jets of plasma and magnetic fields that travel hundreds of kilo-parsecs, ultimately depositing energy into the intra- or inter-cluster medium. In the rest frame of the jet, the energy…
Blazars, radio-loud active galactic nuclei with the relativistic jet closely aligned with the line of sight, dominate the extragalactic sky observed at gamma-ray energies, above 100 MeV. We discuss some of the emission properties of these…
The dynamics of relativistic electrons interacting with a laser pulse in a plasma wave has been investigated theoretically and numerically based on the classical Landau-Lifshitz equation. There exists a convergent trajectory of electrons…
Several phenomena in high energy astrophysics have been recently related to clusters of galaxies and to cosmic ray interactions occurring inside these structures. In many of these phenomena the observable effects depend on the energy…
The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory revealed the high energy emission of some Active Galactic Nuclei called "Blazars"; few of them have also been observed by ground Cererenkov arrays. Those sources observed with Whipple Observatory emit gamma…
Despite their different nature and physics, blazars and gamma-ray bursts have in common very powerful relativistic jets, which make them the most luminous sources in the Universe. The energy extraction from the central compact object, the…
The high frequency component in blazars is thought to be due to inverse Compton scattered radiation. Recent observations by Fermi-LAT are used to evaluate the details of the scattering process. A comparison is made between the usually…
I outline a unified model of high-energy astrophysics, in which the gamma background radiation, cluster "cooling flows", gamma-ray bursts, X-ray flashes and cosmic-ray electrons and nuclei of all energies -share a common origin. The…
The Lorentz factor of a relativistic jet and its evolution during the jet expansion are difficult to estimate, especially for the jets in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). However, it is related to the understanding of jet physics. Owing to the…
GRB 990123 was a long, complex gamma-ray burst accompanied by an extremely bright optical flash. We present the collective constraints on the bulk Lorentz factor for this burst based on estimates from burst kinematics, synchrotron spectral…
Blazars, a subclass of radio-loud active galactic nuclei with relativistic jets aligned close to our line of sight, emit highly variable non-thermal radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum. The physical origin of their emission and…
The essence of the ``Supercritical Pile'' model is a process for converting the energy stored in the relativistic protons of a Relativistic Blast Wave (RBW) of Lorentz factor $\Gamma$ into electron -- positron pairs of similar Lorentz…
Relativistic jets of radio loud active galactic nuclei (AGN) produce highly directed, intense beams of radiation. A fraction of this beamed radiation scatters on the thermal plasma generally surrounding an AGN. The morphology of the…
SS 433 is a microquasar, a stellar binary system with collimated relativistic jets. We observed SS 433 in gamma rays using the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), finding an energy-dependent shift in the apparent position of the…
We consider Bose-Einstein condensation of massive electrically charged scalars in a uniform background of charged fermions. We focus on the case when the scalar condensate screens the background charge, while the net charge of the system…
The matter content of relativistic jets in AGNs is dominated by a mixture of protons, electrons, and positrons. During dissipative events these particles tap a significant portion of the internal and/or kinetic energy of the jet and convert…
We present a comprehensive temporal and spectral analysis of a few blazars using multi-wavelength observations. Rapid flux variations are quantified via the doubling/halving timescale method, revealing the shortest variability timescales of…
The constancy of light speed is a basic assumption in Einstein's special relativity, and consequently the Lorentz invariance is a fundamental symmetry of space-time in modern physics. However, it is speculated that the speed of light…
The observed variability of BL Lac objects and Quasars on timescales <1 day (intraday variability, IDV) have revealed radio brightness temperatures up to 10^{16}-10^{20} K. These values challenge the beaming model with isotropic comoving…
We study the properties of plasmas containing a low energy thermal photon component at comoving temperature \theta \equiv kT'/m_e c^2 \sim 10^{-5} - 10^{-2} interacting with an energetic electron component, characteristic of, e.g., the…