Related papers: An Overview of Blazar Variability
Extreme high-frequency peaked BL Lac objects (EHBLs) are blazars which exhibit extremely energetic synchrotron emission. They also feature non-thermal gamma-ray emission whose peak lies in the very high-energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) range, and…
The Fermi Gamma-ray Observatory discovered about a thousand extragalactic sources emitting energy from 100 MeV to 100 GeV. The majority of these sources belong to the class of blazars characterized by a quasi-featureless optical spectrum…
A simple model for variability in relativistic plasma outflows is studied, in which nonthermal electrons are continuously and uniformly injected in the comoving frame over a time interval dt. The evolution of the electron distribution is…
The rapid variability of the VHE emission reported for some TeV blazars implies Doppler factors well in excess of those inferred from superluminal motions and unification schemes. We propose that those extreme flares may result from…
Blazar flare data show energy-dependent lags and correlated variability between optical/X-ray and GeV-TeV energies, and follow characteristic trajectories when plotted in the spectral-index/flux plane. This behavior is qualitatively…
The origin of gamma-ray flares observed from blazars is one of the major mysteries in jet physics. We have attempted to address this problem following a novel spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting technique that explored the flaring…
Here we present the first optical photometric monitoring results of a sample of twelve newly discovered blazars from the ICRF - Gaia CRF astrometric link. The observations were performed from April 2013 until August 2019 using eight…
The emission from blazars is known to be variable at all wavelengths. The flux variability is often accompanied by spectral changes. Spectral energy distribution (SED) changes must be associated with changes in the spectra of emitting…
The origin of the high-energy emission in astrophysical jets from black holes is a highly debated issue. This is particularly true for jets from supermassive black holes that are among the most powerful particle accelerators in the…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) with relativistic jets are the most powerful persistent astrophysical sources of electromagnetic radiation in the Universe. Blazars are the most extreme subclass of AGN with jets directed along the line of sight…
Blazars are high-energy engines providing us natural laboratories to study particle acceleration, relativistic plasma processes, magnetic field dynamics, black hole physics. Key informations are provided by observations at high-energy (in…
Blazars are known to exhibit variability across a broad range of timescales. This behavior can include periodicity in their $\gamma$-ray emission, whose clear detection remains an ongoing challenge, partly due to the inherent stochasticity…
Multicolor (UBVRIJHK) observations of the blazar AO 0235+16 are analyzed. The light curves were compiled at the Turin Observatory from literature data and the results of observations obtained in the framework of the WEBT program…
In this review, recent progress in theoretical models for blazar emission will be summarized. The salient features of both leptonic and lepto-hadronic approaches to modeling blazar spectral energy distributions will be reviewed. I will…
Blazars are among the most energetic and violent objects in the universe. By observing blazars at very high energies (VHE, E > 100 GeV) we can better understand blazar emission mechanisms, jet structure, black hole accretion and the…
Recent population studies have shown that the variability Doppler factors can adequately describe blazars as a population. We use the flux density variations found within the extensive radio multi-wavelength datasets of the F-GAMMA program,…
The properties of blazar variability in the radio band are studied using the unique combination of temporal resolution from single dish monitoring and spatial resolution from VLBA imaging; such measurements, now available in all four Stokes…
Average Spectral Energy Distributions (SED) for different subgroups of blazars are derived from available homogeneous (but small) data sets, including the gamma-ray band. Comparing Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars (FSRQ) with BL Lacs extracted…
We report on two BeppoSAX observations of BL Lac (2200+420) performed respectively in June and December 1999, as part of a ToO program to monitor blazars in high states of activity. During both runs the source has been detected up to 100…
The rareness of blazars, combined with the previous history of relatively shallow, single-band surveys, has dramatically colored our perception of these objects. Despite a quarter-century of research, it is not at all clear whether current…