Related papers: High Energy Phenomena in Blazars
In recent years, blazar surveys at radio and X-ray energies have greatly increased our understanding of this type of active galaxy. The combination of multi-wavelength data has shown that blazars follow a well defined sequence in terms of…
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…
We observed with the NuSTAR satellite 3 blazars at z>2, detected in gamma-rays by Fermi/LAT and in the soft X-rays, but not yet observed above 10 keV. The flux and slope of their X-ray continuum, together with Fermi/LAT data allows us to…
We propose and test a fairly simple idea that could account for the blazar sequence: all jets are launched with similar energy per baryon, independently of their power. For instance, flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), the most powerful…
Blazars are sources whose jet is pointing to us. Since their jets are relativistic, the flux is greatly amplified in the direction of motion, making blazars the most powerful persistent objects in the Universe. This is true at all…
TeV emission can be a common characteristic of low power blazars. This is in line with the sequence of blazars relating the observed bolometric luminosity with their overall spectral energy distribution. Detecting new TeV blazars, possibly…
Blazars are a class of jet-dominated active galactic nuclei with a typical double-humped spectral energy distribution. It is of common consensus the Synchrotron emission to be responsible for the low frequency peak, while the origin of the…
A large fraction of the AGNs detected by EGRET exhibit strong variability in many wavebands- from radio to the highest energy gamma-rays observed. The origin of the transient emission in blazars is presumably associated with relativistic…
The discovery of strong gamma-ray and hard X-ray emission and the results from various multifrequency campaigns have disclosed new aspects of the blazar phenomenology, leading to a much more robust understanding of the mechanisms underlying…
Blazars are highly variable active galactic nuclei which emit radiation at all wavelengths from radio to gamma-rays. Polarized radiation from blazars is one key piece of evidence for synchrotron radiation at low energies and it also varies…
Bright blazars were found to be prominent neutrino sources, and a number of IceCube events were associated with them over recent years. A particularly strong observational connection is present between neutrinos and blazars with bright,…
Models of Blazars based on the propagation of finite discontinuities or fronts in the Poynting flux jet from the innermost regions of an accretion disk around a black hole are discussed. Such fronts may be responsible for short time-scale…
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…
I discuss the spectral energy distribution (SED) of all blazars with redshift detected by the {\it Fermi} satellite and listed in the 3LAC catalog. I will update the so called "blazar sequence" from the phenomenological point of view, with…
We report on the Swift/XRT observation and classification of eleven blazar candidates at $z>4$. These sources were selected as part of a sample of extremely radio-loud quasars, in order to focus on quasars with jets oriented roughly close…
It is widely accepted that strong and variable radiation detected over all accessible energy bands in a number of active galaxies arises from a relativistic, Doppler-boosted jet pointing close to our line of sight. The size of the emitting…
Relativistic plasma jets are observed in many accreting black holes. According to theory, coiled magnetic fields close to the black hole accelerate and collimate the plasma, leading to a jet being launched. Isolating emission from this…
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…
X-ray emission from large scale extragalactic jets is likely to be due to inverse Compton scattering of relativistic particles off seed photons of both the cosmic microwave background field and the blazar nucleus. The first process…
The formation of relativistic jets by an accreting compact object is one of the fundamental mysteries of astrophysics. While the theory is poorly understood, observations of relativistic jets from systems known as microquasars have led to a…