Related papers: Low power BL Lacertae objects and the blazar seque…
We present the results from a study of the long-term optical spectral variations of BL Lacertae, using the long and well-sampled B and R-band light curves of the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) collaboration, binned on time intervals of…
The jets of blazars are renowned for their multi-wavelength flares and rapid extreme variability; however, there are still some important unanswered questions about the physical processes responsible for these spectral and temporal changes…
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…
The standard blazar paradigm consists of a supermassive black hole that expels relativistic jets of magnetized plasma in our direction. This plasma entrains nonthermal synchrotron-emitting electrons that furthermore scatter…
The new results of the evolution of the synchrotron peak for Mrk 421 are mostly likely related to the particle acceleration process. In order to account for the above results, we present a model of blazar variability during the flare in…
In 2021 BL Lacertae underwent an extraordinary activity phase, which was intensively followed by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) Collaboration. We present the WEBT optical data in the BVRI bands acquired at 36 observatories around…
The radiation observed by blazars is believed to originate from the transformation of bulk kinetic energy of relativistic jets into random energy. A simple way to achieve this is to have an intermittent central power source, producing…
The observed spectra of blazars, their intrinsic emission, and the underlying populations of radiating particles are intimately related. The use of these sources as probes of the extragalactic infrared background, a prospect propelled by…
The theory of linear acceleration emission is developed for a large amplitude electrostatic wave in which all particles become highly relativistic in much less than a wave period. An Airy integral approximation is shown to apply near the…
We propose a scenario where blazars are classified as flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), BL Lacs, low synchrotron, or high synchrotron peaked objects according to a varying mix of the Doppler boosted radiation from the jet, the emission…
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…
We investigate the spectral properties of the brightest gamma-ray flares of blazars detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope. We search for the presence of spectral breaks and measure the spectral curvature on typical time scales of a few…
Gamma-ray bursts are often the brightest objects in the sky during their short life. Particle acceleration in trans-relativistic shocks, internal to the main blastwave, may explain the early intensity peaks, and particle acceleration in the…
Blazars are a class of active galactic nuclei which host relativistic jets oriented close to the observer's line of sight. Blazars have very complex variability properties. Flares, namely flux variations around the mean value with a…
We discuss the present knowledge about the Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) of blazars within a unified approach emphasizing overall similarities. The properties of the average SEDs of different samples of blazars suggest that more…
A high energy power law is a common feature in the spectra of many astrophysical objects. We show that the photons in a relativistic plasma with a variable Lorentz factor go through repeated scattering with electrons to gain energy. The…
Beppo}SAX contributed substantially to our understanding of the physics of blazars. This has been made possible mainly by its wide energy range and especially by its high energy detector. Together with the information coming from still…
We model the acceleration of electrons at a shock front in a relativistic blazar jet and compute the radiation they emit in a post-shock region which contains a homogeneous magnetic field. The full space, time and momentum dependence of the…
Blazars are highly variable and display complex characteristics. A key characteristic is the flux probability distribution function or flux PDF whose shape depends upon the form of the underlying physical process driving variability. The BL…
The blazar sequence is reflected in a correlation of the peak luminosity versus peak frequency of the synchrotron component of blazars. This correlation has been considered one of the fundamental pieces of evidence for the existence of a…