Related papers: Relativistic Jets of Blazars
Blazars show variability on timescales ranging from minutes to years, the former being comparable to and in some cases even shorter than the light-crossing time of the central black hole. The observed gamma-ray lightcurves can be described…
We discuss radio observations of a sample of radio-weak and radio-intermediate quasars which demonstrate that - just like their radio-loud counterparts - radio-weak quasars too have relativistic jets in their nuclei. Moreover, a VLA survey…
The impact of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope on blazar research is reviewed. This includes a brief description of the Fermi Large Area Telescope, a summary of the various classes of extragalactic sources found in the First Large Area…
Blazars are active galactic nuclei with relativistic jets pointed almost directly at Earth. Blazars are characterized by strong, apparently stochastic flux variability at virtually all observed wavelengths and timescales, from minutes to…
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…
Blazars radiate from relativistic plasma jets with bulk Lorentz factors {\Gamma} ~ 10, closely aligned along our line of sight. In a number of blazars of the Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar type such as 3C 454.3 and 3C 279 gamma-ray flares have…
Hard X-ray observations are crucial to study the non-thermal jet emission from high-redshift, powerful blazars. We observed two bright z>2 flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) in hard X-rays to explore the details of their relativistic jets…
A black hole can launch a powerful relativistic jet after it tidally disrupts a star. If this jet fortuitously aligns with our line of sight, the overall brightness is Doppler boosted by several orders of magnitude. Consequently, such…
The development of instabilities leading to the formation of internal shocks is expected in the relativistic outflows of both gamma-ray bursts and blazars. The shocks heat the expanding ejecta, generate a tangled magnetic field and…
According to the currently favored picture, relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) are launched in the vicinity of the black hole by magnetic fields extracting energy from the spinning black hole or the accretion disk. In the…
Relativistic jets of plasma are a key ingredient of many types of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Today we know that AGNs are powered by the accretion of inter stellar material into the gravitational field of a Super Massive Black Hole and…
Accreting black holes produce powerful relativistic plasma jets which emit radiation across all observable wavelengths but the details of the initial acceleration and confinement of the jet are uncertain. We apply an innovative new model…
I briefly outline our current observational understanding of the relativistic jets observed from X-ray binary systems, and how their study may shed light on analogous phenomena in Active Galactic Nuclei and Gamma Ray Bursts. How SKA may…
Extragalactic relativistic jets are composed by charged particles and magnetic fields, as inferred from the synchrotron emission that we receive from them. The Larmor radii of the particles propagating along the magnetic field are much…
We investigate the dependence of gamma-ray brightness of blazars on intrinsic properties of their parsec-scale radio jets and the implication for relativistic beaming. By combining apparent jet speeds derived from high-resolution VLBA…
The properties of relativistic radio jets are thought to be closely connected with the properties of accretion disks in active galactic nuclei. We explore this issue using a sample of 35 blazars with very-long baseline observations, for…
Relativistic outflows are a common phenomenon in accreting black holes. Despite the enormous differences in scale, stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries and collapsars, and super-massive black holes at the dynamic centre of galaxies…
Although the radio emission from most quasars appears to be associated with star forming activity in the host galaxy, about ten percent of optically selected quasars have very luminous relativistic jets apparently powered by a SMBH which is…
This article reviews our current understanding about $\gamma$-ray detected narrow-line Seyfert 1 ($\gamma$-NLSy1) galaxies. The detection with the Large Area Telescope onboard {\it Fermi}~Gamma-ray Space Telescope has provided the strongest…
The recent launch of Fermi / GLAST - coinciding with the MAXI workshop - opens a new era for studies of jet-dominated active galaxies, known as blazars. While the emission processes operating in various spectral bands in blazars are…