Related papers: Origin of Blazar Activity
We propose that TeV $\gamma$-ray emission from blazars is produced by collisions near the line of sight of high energy jet protons with gas targets (``clouds'') from the broad emission-line region (BLR). Intense TeV $\gamma$-ray flares…
We model light curves of flares observed in blazars, assuming that they are produced by relativistic electrons/positrons injected by forward-reverse shocks traveling down the jet with relativistic speeds. We approximate the radiating region…
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…
We propose a time-dependent one-zone model based on a quasi-Maxwellian `pile-up' distribution in order to explain the time-averaged high energy emission of TeV blazars. The instantaneous spectra are the result of the synchrotron and…
High energy emission from blazars is thought to arise in a relativistic jet launched by a supermassive black hole. The emission site must be far from the hole and the jet relativistic, in order to avoid absorption of the photons. In extreme…
Blazar emission models based on magnetic reconnection succeed in reproducing many observed spectral and temporal features, including the short-duration luminous flaring events. Plasmoids, a self-consistent by-product of the tearing…
Minute-timescale TeV flares have been observed in several blazars. The fast flaring requires compact regions in the jet that boost their emission towards the observer at an extreme Doppler factor of delta>50. For TeV photons to avoid…
Blazars, a highly energetic subclass of jetted active galactic nuclei, show a broad band spectral energy distribution (SED) with two bumps, resulting from non-thermal jet emission. In 1998, an anticorrelation between the SED luminosity and…
Blazars radiate from relativistic jets launched by a supermassive black hole along our line of sight; the subclass of FSRQs exhibits broad emission lines, a telltale sign of a gas-rich environment and high accretion rate, contrary to the…
Blazars are a subclass of radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs), where the jet is aligned close to the line of sight. Blazars emission is dominated by non-thermal processes, where Doppler boosted radiation originates from a relativistic…
Rapid variability of the TeV emission in several blazars implies a central black hole mass $M_{BH}<10^8M_\odot$, appreciably smaller than the values estimated from the $M_{BH}-L_{bulg}$ relation, and Doppler factors for the $\gamma$-ray…
Blazars, a subclass of active galactic nuclei (AGN), are known to be bright $\gamma$-ray sources, frequently exhibiting active (flaring) periods. The blazar PKS~2155-304 is a high synchrotron-peaked BL Lac object located at redshift…
Blazars are a sub-category of radio-loud active galactic nuclei with relativistic jets pointing towards the observer. They exhibit non-thermal variable emission, which practically extends over the whole electromagnetic spectrum. Despite the…
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…
The fast TeV variability of the blazars Mrk 501 and PKS 2155--304 implies a compact emitting region that moves with a bulk Lorentz factor of Gamma_{em}~100 toward the observer. The Lorentz factor is clearly in excess of the jet Lorentz…
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…
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…
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…
The hypothesis that AGN jets might be the sources of the ultra-high energy cosmic rays has originally motivated the venture of TeV gamma ray astronomy. Surprisingly, after the discovery of TeV emission from blazars the attention has shifted…
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…