Related papers: Catching profound optical flares in blazars
Intense outbursts in blazars are among the most extreme phenomena seen in extragalactic objects. Studying these events can offer important information about the energetic physical processes taking place within the innermost regions of…
The blazar 3C 279, one of the brightest identified extragalactic objects in the gamma-ray sky, underwent a flare of a factor 10 amplitude in gamma-rays towards the end of a 3-week pointing by CGRO, in 1996 January-February. The flare peak…
The well studied blazar 3C 279 underwent a giant $\gamma$-ray outburst in 2014 March-April. The measured $\gamma$-ray flux (1.21 $\pm$ 0.10 $\times$ 10$^{-5}$ ph cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ in 0.1-300 GeV energy range) is the highest detected from…
During 2001-2002 the optically violent variable (OVV) blazar 3C 279 un- derwent the most intense outburst seen during the entire fourteen year history that this quasar has been studied at Colgate University's Foggy Bottom Obser- vatory…
The blazar 3C 279 is well known for its prolific emission of rapid flares. A particular event occurred on 12/20/2013, exhibiting a large flux increase with a doubling time scale of a few hours, a very hard gamma-ray spectrum, and a…
We have analyzed the optical light curves of the blazar OJ 287 obtained with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) over about 80 days from 2021 October 13 to December 31, with an unprecedented sampling of 2 minutes. Although…
We present the results of extensive multi-waveband monitoring of the blazar 3C~279 between 1996 and 2007 at X-ray energies (2-10 keV), optical R band, and 14.5 GHz, as well as imaging with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 43 GHz. In…
Blazars are strongly variable sources that occasionally show spectacular flares visible in various energy bands. These flares are often, but not always, correlated. In a number of cases the peaks of optical flares are found to be somewhat…
By studying the variability of blazars across the electromagnetic spectrum, it is possible to resolve the underlying processes responsible for rapid flux increases, so-called flares. We report on an extremely bright X-ray flare in the…
Recent high-energy missions have allowed keeping watch over blazars in flaring states, which provide deep insights into the engine powered by supermassive black holes. However, having a quasar caught in a very bright flaring state is not…
Bright and fast gamma-ray flares with hard spectra have been recently detected from the blazar 3C 279, with apparent GeV luminosities up to $10^{49}$ erg/s. The source is observed to flicker on timescales of minutes with no comparable…
The blazar 3C 279 is well known for its rapid and large-amplitude variability. On 20 December 2013, the source exhibited an orphan {\gamma}-ray flare characterized by a flux-doubling timescale of a few hours, a very hard spectrum, a…
The blazar 3C454.3 exhibited a strong flare seen in gamma-rays, X-rays, and optical/NIR bands during 3--12 December 2009. Emission in the V and J bands rose more gradually than did the gamma-rays and soft X-rays, though all peaked at nearly…
The flat spectrum radio quasar 3C 279 was observed in an extremely high activity state on June 16, 2015 (MJD 57189). In this paper, we investigate the properties of this flaring episode in the high energy $\gamma$-ray and optical bands…
Blazars show optical and $\gamma$-ray flux variations that are generally correlated, although there are exceptions. Here we present anomalous behaviour seen in the blazar 3C 454.3 based on an analysis of quasi-simultaneous data at optical,…
We study the synchrotron flaring behaviour of the blazar 3C279 based on an extensive dataset covering 10 years of monitoring at 19 different frequencies in the radio-to-optical range. The properties of a typical outburst are derived from…
Jets in blazars are an excellent forum for studying acceleration at relativistic shocks using the highly-variable emission seen across the electromagnetic spectrum. Our recent work on combining multi-wavelength leptonic emission models with…
An exhaustive analysis of 9-year optical R-band photopolarimetric data of the flat-spectrum radio quasar 3C279 from 2008 February 27 to 2017 May 25 is presented, alongside with multiwavelength observing campaigns performed during the…
I present a systematic study of gamma-ray flares in blazars. For this purpose, I propose a very simple and practical definition of a flare as a period of time, associated with a given flux peak, during which the flux is above half of the…
Blazars are active galactic nuclei known for their extreme variability, offering unique opportunities to study jet physics and high-energy emission mechanisms. In 2024, the Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar (FSRQ) OP313 underwent a remarkable…