Inhomogeneities can influence the polarisation emerging from a synchrotron source. However, it is shown that the frequency distribution of circular polarisation is only marginally affected, although its magnitude may change substantially. This is used to argue that the observed properties of compact radio sources imply a radiating plasma in which the characteristic waves are nearly circular. As a result, restrictions can be put on the low energy part of the energy distribution of the relativistic electrons as well as the presence of electron-positron pairs. It is emphasised that this constrains theoretical modelling of the acceleration process for the relativistic electrons; for example, some of the currently popular scenarios seem to need modifications to become consistent with observations.
It is shown that the frequency distribution of the degree of circular polarisation for a homogeneous source is sensitive to the properties of the synchrotron emitting plasma. Most of the circular polarisation comes from the region around the turn-over frequency, where the synchrotron radiation becomes optically thick. However, nearly circular characteristic waves result in circular polarisation dominated by frequencies above the turn-over frequency, while for nearly linear characteristic waves it is dominated by frequencies below. Observations argue in favour of nearly circular characteristic …
The RoboPol instrument and the relevant program was developed in order to conduct a systematic study of the optical polarisation variability of blazars. Driven by the discovery that long smooth rotations of the optical polarisation plane can be associated with the activity in other bands and especially in gamma rays, the program was meant to investigate the physical mechanisms causing them and quantify the optical polarisation behaviour in blazars. Over the first three nominal observing seasons (2013, 2014 and 2015) RoboPol detected 40 rotations in 24 blazars by observing a gamma-ray-loud and …
The general model for incoherent synchrotron radiation has long been known, with the first theory being published by Westfold in $1959$ and continued by Westfold and Legg in $1968$. When this model was first developed it was applied to radiation from Jupiter, with a magnetic field of $\approx$ 1 G. Pulsars have a magnetic field of $\approx 10^{12}$ G. The Westfold and Legg model predict a circular polarization which is proportional to the square root of the magnetic field, and consequently predicts greater than 100 per cent circular polarization at high magnetic fields. Here a new model is der…
$GRB~160802A$ is one of the brightest gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed with $Fermi$ Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) in the energy range of $10~-~1000$ keV, while at the same time it is surprisingly faint at energies $\gtrsim2$ MeV. An observation with $AstroSat$/CZT Imager (CZTI) also provides the polarisation which helps in constraining different prompt emission models using the novel joint spectra-polarimetric data. We analyze the $Fermi$/GBM data, and find two main bursting episodes that are clearly separated in time, one particularly faint in higher energies and having certain differences in…
Recently, evidence for synchrotron emission in both black hole and neutron star X-ray binaries has been mounting, from optical/infrared spectral, polarimetric, and fast timing signatures. The synchrotron emission of jets can be highly linearly polarised, depending on the configuration of the magnetic field. Optical and infrared (OIR) polarimetric observations of X-ray binaries are presented in this brief review. The OIR polarimetric signature of relativistic jets is detected at levels of ~ 1-10 %, similar to AGN cores. This reveals that the magnetic geometry in the compact jets may be similar …
We discuss the synchrotron emission of fast cooling electrons in shocks. The fast cooling electrons behind the shocks can generate a position-dependent inhomogeneous electron distribution if they do not have enough time to mix homogeneously. This would lead to a very different synchrotron spectrum in low-frequency bands to that in the homogeneous case due to the synchrotron absorption. In this paper, we calculate the synchrotron spectrum in the inhomogeneous case in a gamma-ray burst (GRB). Both the forward shock and the reverse shock are considered. We find for the reverse shock dominated cas…
Radio relics are diffuse radio sources in galaxy clusters that are associated with merger shock waves. Detailed observations of radio relics in total intensity and in polarisation show complex structures on kiloparsec scales. The relation between the observed features and the underlying morphology of the magnetic field is not clear. Using three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamical simulations, we study the polarised emission produced by a shock wave that propagates through a turbulent medium that resembles the intracluster medium. We model the polarised synchrotron emission on the basis of diffu…
We study the acceleration, transport, and emission of particles in relativistic jets. Localized stochastic particle acceleration, spatial diffusion, and synchrotron as well as synchrotron self-Compton emission are considered in a leptonic model. To account for inhomogeneity, we use a 2D axi-symmetric cylindrical geometry for both relativistic electrons and magnetic field. In this first phase of our work, we focus on steady-state spectra that develop from a time-dependent model. We demonstrate that small isolated acceleration region in a much larger emission volume are sufficient to accelerate …
The new generation of X-ray polarisation detectors, gas pixel detectors, which will be employed by the future space missions IXPE and eXTP, allows for spatially resolved X-ray polarisation studies. This will be of particular interest for X-ray synchrotron emission from extended sources like young supernova remnants and pulsar wind nebulae. Here we report on employing a polarisation statistic that can be used to makes maps in the Stokes I, Q, and U parameters, a method that we expand by correcting for the energy-dependent instrumental modulation factor, using optimal weighting of the signal. In…
We present an updated version of POLARIS, a well established code designated for dust polarisation and line radiative transfer (RT) in arbitrary astrophysical environments. We extend the already available capabilities with a synchrotron feature for polarised emission. Here, we combine state-of-the-art solutions of the synchrotron RT coefficients with numerical methods for solving the complete system of equations of the RT problem, including Faraday rotation (FR) as well as Faraday conversion (FC). We validate the code against Galactic and extragalactic observations by performing a statistical …
The extreme, time-variable Faraday rotation observed in the repeating fast radio burst (FRB) 121102 and its associated persistent synchrotron source demonstrates that some FRBs originate in dense, dynamic and possibly relativistic magneto-ionic environments. Here we show that besides rotation of the linear-polarisation vector (Faraday rotation), such media can generally convert linear to circular polarisation (Faraday conversion). We use non-detection of Faraday conversion, and the temporal variation in Faraday rotation and dispersion in bursts from FRB\,121102 to constrain models where the pr…
There is an increasing number of observational evidence that very high energy gamma-rays in radio-loud active galactic nuclei are produced in the direct vicinity of a supermassive black hole (SMBH), close to the base of a relativistic jet. In the case of some blazars, the angle between the jet axis and the observer's line of sight is smaller than the angular extent of the jet. Gamma-rays that are produced close to SMBH therefore have to propagate in the nonthermal radiation of the extended jet before reaching the observer. This gamma-ray emission can be strongly absorbed in the extended jet ra…
We analyse the circular polarisation data accumulated in the first 7 years of the POLAMI project introduced in an accompanying paper (Agudo et al.). In the 3mm wavelength band, we acquired more than 2600 observations, and all but one of our 37 sample sources were detected, most of them several times. For most sources, the observed distribution of the degree of circular polarisation is broader than that of unpolarised calibrators, indicating that weak (<0.5%) circular polarisation is present most of the time. Our detection rate and the maximum degree of polarisation found, 2.0%, are comparable …
Flows of synchrotron-emitting material can be found in several astrophysical contexts, including extragalactic jets and pulsar-wind nebulae (PWNe). For X-ray synchrotron emission, flow times are often longer than electron radiative lifetimes, so the effective source size at a given X-ray energy is the distance electrons radiating at that energy can convect before they burn off. Since synchrotron losses vary strongly with electron energy, the source size drops with increasing X-ray energy, resulting in a steepening of the synchrotron spectrum. For homogeneous sources, this burnoff produces the …
The interpretation of Galactic synchrotron observations is complicated by the degeneracy between the strength of the magnetic field perpendicular to the line of sight (LOS), $B_\perp$, and the cosmic-ray electron (CRe) spectrum. Depending on the observing frequency, an energy-independent spectral energy slope $s$ for the CRe spectrum is usually assumed: $s=-2$ at frequencies below $\simeq$400 MHz and $s=-3$ at higher frequencies. Motivated by the high angular and spectral resolution of current facilities such as the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) and future telescopes such as the Square Kilometre…
Discriminating blazar emission models with high-energy polarimetry: Multi-band predictions and detectability
University of Crete（克里特大学）；Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas（希腊研究与技术基金会）；University of Maryland Baltimore County（马里兰大学巴尔的摩分校）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（美国国家航空航天局戈达德太空飞行中心）；Louisiana State University（路易斯安那州立大学）；Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Padova（意大利国家核物理研究所帕多瓦分部）
A multifrequency campaign on the BL Lac object PG 1553+113 was organized by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) in 2013 April-August, involving 19 optical, two near-IR, and three radio telescopes. The aim was to study the source behaviour at low energies during and around the high-energy observations by the Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes in April-July. We also analyse the UV and X-ray data acquired by the Swift and XMM-Newton satellites in the same period. The WEBT and satellite observations allow us to detail the synchrotron emission bump in the source sp…
The Impact of a Clumpy Ambient Medium on the Dynamics and Synchrotron Emission of AGN Jets
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy（马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所）；Department of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Indore（印度印多尔理工学院天文、天体物理与空间工程系）
In this review, recent progress in theoretical models for the broadband (radio through gamma-ray) emission from blazars are summarized. The salient features of both leptonic and hadronic models are reviewed. I present sample modeling results of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of different types of Fermi-detected blazars along the traditional blazar sequence, using both types of models. In many cases, the SEDs of high-frequency peaked blazars (HBLs) have been found to be well represented by simple synchrotron + synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) models. However, a few HBLs recently discovered …
