No Arabic abstract
Blazars exhibit flares across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Many $gamma$-ray flares are highly correlated with flares detected at longer wavelengths; however, a small subset appears to occur in isolation, with little or no correlated variability at longer wavelengths. These orphan $gamma$-ray flares challenge current models of blazar variability, most of which are unable to reproduce this type of behavior. Macdonald et al. have developed the Ring of Fire model to explain the origin of orphan $gamma$-ray flares from within blazar jets. In this model, electrons contained within a blob of plasma moving relativistically along the spine of the jet inverse-Compton scatter synchrotron photons emanating off of a ring of shocked sheath plasma that enshrouds the jet spine. As the blob propagates through the ring, the scattering of the ring photons by the blob electrons creates an orphan $gamma$-ray flare. This model was successfully applied to modeling a prominent orphan $gamma$-ray flare observed in the blazar PKS 1510$-$089. To further support the plausibility of this model, Macdonald et al. presented a stacked radio map of PKS 1510$-$089 containing the polarimetric signature of a sheath of plasma surrounding the spine of the jet. In this paper, we extend our modeling and stacking techniques to a larger sample of blazars: 3C 273, 4C 71$.$01, 3C 279, 1055$+$018, CTA 102, and 3C 345, the majority of which have exhibited orphan $gamma$-ray flares. We find that the model can successfully reproduce these flares, while our stacked maps reveal the existence of jet sheaths within these blazars.
Blazars, a class of highly variable active galactic nuclei, sometimes exhibit Orphan $gamma$-ray flares. These flares having high flux only in $gamma$-ray energies do not show significant variations in flux at lower energies. We study the temporal and spectral profile of these Orphan $gamma$-ray flares in detail from three $gamma-ray$ bright blazars, 3C 273, PKS 1510-089 and 3C 279 and also their simultaneous broadband emissions. We find that the variability timescales of the Orphan $gamma$-ray flares were $(0.96pm0.28)$ days, $(3.12pm2.40)$ hr and $(2.16pm0.72)$ hr, for 3C 273, PKS 1510-089 and 3C 279, respectively. The broadband spectral energy distributions (SEDs) during these flares have been modelled with a leptonic model from two emission regions. This model suggests that Orphan $gamma$-ray flares might have originated from inverse Compton scattering of relativistic electrons by the seed photons from the broad-line region or dusty torus, which is the first region. While the second broader region, lying further down the jet, could be responsible for X-ray and radio emissions. The possible locations of these emission regions in the jets of the three sources have been estimated from SED modelling.
In this work, we investigate the 2014-2015 neutrino flare associated with the blazar TXS 0506+056 and a recently discovered muon neutrino event IceCube-200107A in spatial coincidence with the blazar 4FGL J0955.1+3551, under the framework of a two-zone radiation model of blazars where an inner/outer blob close to/far from the supermassive black hole are invoked. An interesting feature that the two sources share in common is that no evidence of GeV gamma-ray activity is found during the neutrino detection period, probably implying a large opacity for GeV gamma rays in the neutrino production region. In our model, continuous particle acceleration/injection takes place in the inner blob at the jet base, where the hot X-ray corona of the supermassive black hole provides target photon fields for efficient neutrino production and strong GeV gamma-ray absorption. We show that this model can self-consistently interpret the neutrino emission from both two blazars in a large parameter space. In the meantime, the dissipation processes in outer blob are responsible for the simultaneous multi-wavelength emission of both sources. In agreement with previous studies of TXS 0506+056 and, an intense MeV emission from the induced electromagnetic cascade in the inner blob is robustly expected to accompany the neutrino flare in our model could be used to test the model with the next-generation MeV gamma-ray detector in the future.
Here we present a new approach for constraining luminous blazars, incorporating fully time-dependent and self-consistent modeling of bright gamma-ray flares of PKS1510-089 resolved with Fermi-LAT, in the framework of the internal shock scenario. The results of our modeling imply the location of the gamma-ray flaring zone outside of the broad-line region, namely around 0.3pc from the core for a free-expanding jet with the opening angle Gamma, theta_mathrm{jet} simeq 1 (where Gamma is the jet bulk Lorentz factor), up to simeq 3pc for a collimated outflow with Gamma, theta_mathrm{jet} simeq 0.1. Moreover, under the Gamma, theta_mathrm{jet} simeq 1 condition, our modeling indicates the maximum efficiency of the jet production during the flares, with the total jet energy flux strongly dominated by protons and exceeding the available accretion power in the source. This is in contrast to the quiescence states of the blazar, characterized by lower jet kinetic power and an approximate energy equipartition between different plasma constituents. We demostrate how strictly simultaneous observations of flaring PKS1510-089 at optical, X-ray, and GeV photon energies on hourly timescales, augmented by extensive simulations as presented in this paper, may help to impose further precise constraints on the magnetization and opening angle of the emitting region. Our detailed modeling implies in addition that a non-uniformity of the Doppler factor across the jet, caused by the radial expansion of the outflow, may lead to a pronounced time distortion in the observed gamma-ray light curves, resulting in particular in asymmetric flux profiles with substantially extended decay phases.
Recent detection of the neutrino event, IceCube-170922A by IceCube observatory from the Blazar TXS 0506+056 in the state of enhanced gamma ray emission indicates for acceleration of cosmic rays in the blazar jet. The non-detection of the broadline emission in the optical spectrum of TXS 0506+056 and other BL Lac objects suggests that external photons emissions are weak and hence photo-meson (p-gamma) interaction may not be a favored mechanism for high energy neutrino production. The lack of broadline signatures also creates doubt about the presence of a high density cloud in the vicinity of the super-massive black hole (SMBH) of TXS 0506+056 and consequently raised question on hadronuclear (pp) interaction interpretation like relativistic jet meets with high density cloud. Here we demonstrate that non-relativistic protons in the proton blazar model, those come into existence under charge neutrality condition of the blazar jet, offer sufficient target matter for pp-interaction with shock accelerated protons and consequently the model can describe consistently the observed high energy gamma rays and neutrino signal from the blazar TXS 0506+056.
Gamma Ray Bursts are detectable in the gamma-ray band if their jets are oriented towards the observer. However, for each GRB with a typical theta_jet, there should be ~2/theta_jet^2 bursts whose emission cone is oriented elsewhere in space. These off-axis bursts can be eventually detected when, due to the deceleration of their relativistic jets, the beaming angle becomes comparable to the viewing angle. Orphan Afterglows (OA) should outnumber the current population of bursts detected in the gamma-ray band even if they have not been conclusively observed so far at any frequency. We compute the expected flux of the population of orphan afterglows in the mm, optical and X-ray bands through a population synthesis code of GRBs and the standard afterglow emission model. We estimate the detection rate of OA by on-going and forthcoming surveys. The average duration of OA as transients above a given limiting flux is derived and described with analytical expressions: in general OA should appear as daily transients in optical surveys and as monthly/yearly transients in the mm/radio band. We find that ~ 2 OA yr^-1 could already be detected by Gaia and up to 20 OA yr^-1 could be observed by the ZTF survey. A larger number of 50 OA yr^-1 should be detected by LSST in the optical band. For the X-ray band, ~ 26 OA yr^-1 could be detected by the eROSITA. For the large population of OA detectable by LSST, the X-ray and optical follow up of the light curve (for the brightest cases) and/or the extensive follow up of their emission in the mm and radio band could be the key to disentangle their GRB nature from other extragalactic transients of comparable flux density.