The nature of the intense X-ray emission from powerful extragalactic jets at large ($>1$ kpc) scale is still debated. The scenario that invokes the inverse Compton scattering of the CMB by electrons is challenged by the lack of gamma-ray emission in the GeV band. An alternative assumes synchrotron emission by a distinct population of ultra-high energy electrons. Here we present a concrete attempt to apply this scenario, exploring the specific model in which the ultra-high energy electrons are accelerated in a shear layer surrounding the jet. We limit the study to non-relativistic flows and particle acceleration is treated by a Fokker-Planck equation. The observed relation between low energy (radio, optical) and X-ray emission prompts us to assume that the required population of pre-accelerated particles is provided by a shock responsible for the acceleration of the electrons emitting at low frequencies. We apply the model to the emission of the principal knots of the jets of PKS 0637-752 and PKS 1136-135, two of the best studied objects. For the set of fiducial parameters adopted, the condition that the jet power does not exceeds a limiting value of $10^{48}$ erg s$^{-1}$ constrains the magnetic field above $10$ $μ$G and indicates moderate beaming ($δ\simeq 2$) for PKS 0637-752. For both sources, the requirement that acceleration of the electrons proceeds faster than radiative cooling can be met if the magnetic turbulence in the shear layer follows a Kolmogorov spectrum, $I(k)\propto k^{-q}$ with $q=5/3$, but cannot satisfied in the Bohm-like case ($q=1$).
Our goal is to research the upper limits on the extragalactic background light (EBL). The upper limits on the extragalactic background light (EBL), using the Fermi and very high energy (VHE) spectra recently observed in TeV blazars, are presented. We use an assumption that the VHE intrinsic photon index cannot be harder than the Fermi index measured by the Fermi-LAT. Totally, these upper limits on the EBL are compatible with ones given by most of EBL models. However, the models of high EBL density are denied by TeV blazars.
We perform three-dimensional numerical simulations of relativistic (with a Lorentz factor of 10), non magnetized jets propagating in a uniform density environment, in order to study the effect of the entrainment and the consequent deceleration. Our simulations investigate the jet propagation inside the galaxy core, where, most likely, the deceleration occurs more efficiently. We compare cases with different density and pressure ratios with respect to the ambient medium finding that low density jets are efficiently decelerated and reach a quasi steady state in which, over a length of 600 jet ra…
Extragalactic jets originating from the central supermassive black holes of active galaxies are powerful, highly relativistic plasma outflows, emitting light from the radio up to the gamma-ray regime. The details of their formation, composition and emission mechanisms are still not completely clear. The combination of high-resolution observations using very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) and multiwavelength monitoring provides the best insight into these objects. Here, such a combined study of sources of the TANAMI sample is presented, investigating the parsec-scale and high-energy proper…
Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are at present well confirmed sites of acceleration of particles to relativistic energies due to observations of gamma-ray emission in the GeV-TeV energy range. We consider a scenario in which the mechanism accelerating electrons is also responsible for acceleration of hadrons in the GRB jets to multi-PeV energies. Since progenitors of long GRBs are massive stars still immersed in dense stellar clusters, these hadrons can efficiently interact with the matter after escaping from the jet. We calculate the spectra of neutrinos from the interaction of those hadrons wit…
The discovery of relativistic jets and superluminal sources associated with accreting X-ray binaries in the Galaxy opened new ways of investigating the physics of outflows from compact objects. The short timescales and relatively large angular sizes of Galactic jets allow to probe the physics of relativistic outflows to unprecedented details. In this article I discuss results of recent modelling of Galactic jets, covering both radiative and dynamical aspects, which can shed light on different features of their extragalactic cousins.
Despite the fact that jets from black holes were first understood to exist over 40 years ago, we are still in ignorance about many primary aspects of these systems -- including the radiation mechanism at high energies, the particle makeup of the jets, and how particles are accelerated, possibly to energies as high as 100 TeV and hundreds of kpc from the central engine. We focus in particular on the discovery (and mystery) of strong X-ray emission from radio jets on kpc-scales, enabled by the unequaled high resolution of the \emph{Chandra} X-ray observatory. We review the main evidence for and …
The joint observation of core-collapse supernovae with gamma-ray bursts shows that jets can be launched in the aftermath of stellar core collapse, likely by a newly formed black hole that accretes matter from the star. Such gamma-ray bursts have only been observed accompanying Type Ibc supernovae, indicating a stellar progenitor that lost its Hydrogen envelope before collapse. According to recent hypothesis it is possible that jets are launched in core-collapse events even when the progenitors still retain their Hydrogen envelopes, however, such jets are not able to burrow through the star and…
One of the most outstanding results of the Chandra X-ray Observatory was the discovery that AGN jets are bright X-ray emitters on very large scales, up to hundreds of kpc. Of these, the powerful and beamed jets of Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars are particularly interesting, as the X-ray emission cannot be explained by an extrapolation of the lower frequency synchrotron spectrum. Instead, the most common model invokes inverse Compton scattering of photons of the Cosmic Microwave Background (EC/CMB) as the mechanism responsible for the high energy emission. The EC/CMB model has recently come under …
In this work, at first we present a model of studying astrophysical flows of binary systems and microquasars based on the laws of relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. Then, by solving the time independent transfer equation, we estimate the primary and secondary particle distributions within the hadronic astrophysical jets as well as the emissivities of high energy neutrinos and $γ$-rays. One of our main goals is, by taking into consideration the various energy-losses of particles into the hadronic jets, to determine through the transport equation the respective particle distributions focusing on…
The TANAMI program has been monitoring the parsec-scale radio jets of southern gamma-ray bright AGN with VLBI techniques simultaneously with Fermi/LAT monitoring of their gamma-ray emission. Here we present the gamma-ray properties of the TANAMI sources based on an analysis of the preliminary 1-year LAT source list. We present upper limits on the gamma-ray flux for TANAMI sources not detected by LAT.
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 …
Most extragalactic jets in radio-loud Active Galactic Nuclei are bright and variable gamma-ray sources, which are continuously monitored with Fermi/LAT. We present the gamma-ray properties of the MOJAVE and TANAMI AGN samples of radio-loud AGN. Both programs provide properties of the parsec-scale radio jets using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) techniques. This information is important to understand the broad-band emission mechanism of these sources. In this work we compare the radio and gamma -ray properties of the two samples and present upper limits on the gamma-ray flux of the rad…
As part of our program to build a complete radio and X-ray database of all the 3CR extragalactic radio sources, we present an analysis of 93 sources for which Chandra archival data are available. Most of these sources have been already published. Here we provide a uniform re-analysis and present nuclear X-ray fluxes and X-ray emission associated with radio jet knots and hotspots using both publicly available radio images and new radio images that have been constructed from data available in the VLA archive. For about 1/3 of the sources in the selected sample a comparison between the Chandra an…
Helical magnetic fields embedded in the jets of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are required by the broad range of theoretical models that advocate for electromagnetic launching of the jets. In most models, the direction of the magnetic field is random, but if the axial field is generated by a Cosmic Battery generated by current in the direction of rotation in the accretion disk, there is a correlation between the directions of the spin of the AGN accretion disk and of the axial field, which leads to a specific direction for the axial electric current, azimuthal magnetic field, and the resulting…
We present the results of state-of-the-art simulations of recollimation shocks induced by the interaction of a relativistic jet with an external medium, including the effect of radiative losses of the shocked gas. Our simulations confirm that -- as suggested by earlier semi-analytical models -- the post-shock pressure loss induced by radiative losses may lead to a stationary equilibrium state characterized by a very strong focusing of the flow, with the formation of quite narrow nozzles, with cross-sectional radii as small as $10^{-3}$ times the length scale of the jet. We also study the time-…
High-energy cosmic rays (CRs) can be accelerated in the relativistic jets of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) powered by supermassive black holes. The baryon loading efficiency onto relativistic CR baryons from the accreting black holes is poorly constrained by observations so far. In this paper, we suggest that the $γ$-ray emission of galaxy clusters can be used to study the baryon loading factor of AGN jets, since CRs injected by AGN jets are completely confined in the galaxy clusters and sufficiently interact with intra-cluster medium via hadronic process, producing diffuse $γ$-rays. We study …
In this paper we report the first stages of an investigation into the X-ray properties of extragalactic jets. Our approach is to subject all sources for which X-ray emission has been detected by Chandra to uniform reduction procedures. Using Chandra archival data for 106 such sources, we measure X-ray fluxes in three bands and compare these to radio fluxes. We discuss the sample, the reduction methods, and present first results for the ratio of X-ray to radio flux for jet knots and hotspots. In particular, we apply statistical tests to various distributions of key observational parameters to e…
The central regions of galaxies are complex environments, rich in evolved and/or massive stars. For galaxies hosting an active galactic nucleus (AGN) with jets, the interaction of the jets with the winds of the stars within can lead to particle acceleration, and to extended high-energy emitting regions. We compute the non-thermal emission produced by the jet flow shocked by stellar winds on the jet scale, far from the jet-star direct interaction region. First, prescriptions for the winds of the relevant stellar populations in different types of galaxies are obtained. The scenarios adopted incl…
Motivated by recent observations that show increasing fractional linear polarization with increasing wavelength in a small number of optically thin jet features, i.e. "inverse depolarization", we present a physical model that can explain this effect and may provide a new and complementary probe of the low energy particle population and possible helical magnetic fields in extragalactic radio jets. In our model, structural inhomogeneities in the jet magnetic field create cancellation of polarization along the line of sight. Internal Faraday rotation, which increases like wavelength squared, acts…
Accretion onto the supermassive black hole in some active galactic nuclei (AGN) drives relativistic jets of plasma, which dissipate a significant fraction of their kinetic energy into gamma-ray radiation. The location of energy dissipation in powerful extragalactic jets is currently unknown, with implications for particle acceleration, jet formation, jet collimation, and energy dissipation. Previous studies have been unable to constrain the location between possibilities ranging from the sub-parsec-scale broad-line region to the parsec-scale molecular torus, and beyond. Here we show using a si…
Extragalactic jets are a common feature of radio-loud active galaxies. The nature of the observed jets in relation to the bulk flow is still unclear. In particular it is not clear whether the observations of parsec-scale jets using the very long baseline interferometric technique (VLBI) reveal wave-like structures that develop and propagate along the jet, or trace the jet flow itself. In this contribution I review the evidence collected during the last years showing that the ridge-lines of helical radio-jets do not correspond to observational artifacts. This conclusion was reached by studying …
There are indications that $γ$-ray dark objects such as supernovae (SNe) with choked jets, and the cores of active galactic nuclei may contribute to the diffuse flux of astrophysical neutrinos measured by the IceCube observatory. In particular, stripped-envelope SNe have received much attention since they are capable of producing relativistic jets and could explain the diversity in observations of collapsar explosions (e.g., gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), low-luminosity GRBs, and Type Ibc SNe). We use an unbinned maximum likelihood method to search for spatial and temporal coincidences between Type …
We analyze the shock-in-jet models for the gamma-ray flaring blazars 0420-014, OJ 287, and 1156+295 presented in Aller et al. (2014, Paper I), quantifying how well the modeling constrains internal properties of the flow (low energy spectral cutoff, partition between random and ordered magnetic field), the flow dynamics (quiescent flow speed and orientation), and the number and strength of the shocks responsible for radio-band flaring. We conclude that well-sampled, multifrequency polarized flux light curves are crucial for defining source properties. We argue for few, if any, low energy partic…
Tidal disruption of stars by massive black holes produce transient accretion flows that flare at optical, UV, and X-ray wavelengths. At late times, these accretion flows may launch relativistic jets that can be detected through the interaction of the jet with the dense interstellar medium of the galaxy. We present an upper limit for the flux density of a radio counterpart to a tidal disruption event detected by GALEX that is a factor of 6 below theoretical predictions. We also examine existing radio surveys for transients with a time scale of 1 year and use these to set a $2 σ$ upper limit on …
Transitions to high mass accretion rates in black hole X-ray binaries are associated with the ejection of powerful, relativistically-moving jets. The mechanism powering such events is thought to be linked to tapping of the angular momentum (spin) of the black hole, the rate of accretion through the disc or some combination of the two. We can attempt to discriminate between these possibilities by comparing proxies for jet power with spin estimates. Due to the small number of sources reaching Eddington rates and have therefore been suggested to act as 'standard candles', there has been much rece…
The Fermi, Swift and INTEGRAL satellites, together with ground based (especially Cherenkov) telescopes made possible a great progress in our understanding of relativistic jets. We can now start to attack the difficult questions of jet formation, collimation and content. We can also used them as probes to quantify the amount of IR and optical background radiation, and the amount of the cosmic magnetic field. Since they are the most powerful steady sources of the Universe, we can study them also at large redshifts, and this is a very fruitful field of research. To this aim, I will emphasize the …
We study the effect of radio-jet core shift, which is a dependence of the position of the jet radio core on the observational frequency. We derive a new method of measuring the jet magnetic field based on both the value of the shift and the observed radio flux, which complements the standard method that assumes equipartition. Using both methods, we re-analyse the blazar sample of Zamaninasab et al. We find that equipartition is satisfied only if the jet opening angle in the radio core region is close to the values found observationally, $\simeq$0.1--0.2 divided by the bulk Lorentz factor, $Γ_{…
The overall classification of X-ray jets has clung to that prevalent in the radio: FRI vs. FRII (including quasars). Indeed, the common perception is that X-ray emission from FRI's is synchrotron emission whereas that from FRII's may be IC/CMB and/or synchrotron. Now that we have a sizable collection of sources with detected X-ray emission from jets and hotspots, it seems that a more unbiased study of these objects could yield additional insights on jets and their X-ray emission. The current contribution is a first step in the process of analyzing all of the relevant parameters for each detect…
The possibility of using lensed relativistic jets on very small angular scales to construct proper models of spiral lens galaxies and to independently determine the Hubble constant is considered. The system B0218+357 is used as an example to illustrate that there exists a great choice of model parameters adequately reproducing its observed large-scale properties but leading to a significant spread in the Hubble constant. The jet image position angle is suggested as an additional parameter that allows the range of models under consideration to be limited. It is shown that the models for which t…
Galactic and extragalactic relativistic jets have rich environments that are full of moving objects, such as stars and dense clumps. These objects can enter into the jets and generate shocks and non-thermal emission. We characterize the emitting properties of the downstream region of a standing shock formed due to the interaction of a relativistic jet with an obstacle. We focus on the case of red giants interacting with an extragalactic jet. We perform relativistic axisymmetric hydrodynamical simulations of a relativistic jet meeting an obstacle of very large inertia. The results are interpret…
Extragalactic jets are formed close to supermassive black-holes in the center of galaxies. Large amounts of gas, dust, and stars cluster in the galaxy nucleus, and interactions between this ambient material and the jet base should be frequent, having dynamical as well as radiative consequences. This work studies the dynamical interaction of an obstacle, a clump of matter or the atmosphere of an evolved star, with the innermost region of an extragalactic jet. Jet mass-loading and the high-energy outcome of this interaction are briefly discussed. Relativistic hydrodynamical simulations with axia…
Observations of positional offsets between the location of X-ray and radio features in many resolved, extragalactic jets indicates that the emitting regions are not co-spatial, an important piece of evidence in the debate over the origin of the X-ray emission on kpc scales. The existing literature is nearly exclusively focused on jets with sufficiently deep Chandra observations to yield accurate positions for X-ray features, but most of the known X-ray jets are detected with tens of counts or fewer, making detailed morphological comparisons difficult. Here we report the detection of X-ray-to-r…
The spatially resolved broad-band spectroscopy with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is one of the few methods that can probe the physical conditions inside blazar jets. We report on measurements of the magnetic field strength in parsec-scale radio structures of selected bright Fermi blazars, based on fitting the synchrotron spectrum to VLBA images made at seven frequencies in a 4.6 -- 43.2 GHz range. Upper limits of B <= 10^-2 -- 10^2 G (observer's frame) could be placed on the magnetic field strength in 13 sources. Hard radio spectra (-0.5 <= a <= +0.1, S_nu ~ nu^a) observed above th…
A non-negligible fraction of a Supermassive Black Hole's (SMBH) rest mass energy gets transported into extragalactic space by a remarkable process in jets which are incompletely understood. What are the physical processes which transport this energy? It is likely that the energy flows electromagnetically, rather than via a particle beam flux. The deduced electromagnetic fields may produce particles of energy as high as $\sim 10^{20}$ eV. The energetics of SMBH accretion disk models and the electromagnetic energy transfer imply that a SMBH should generate a $10^{18} - 10^{19}$ Ampères current c…
Gamma-ray searches for new physics such as dark matter are often driven by investigating the composition of the extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGB). Classic approaches to EGB decomposition manifest in resolving individual point sources and dissecting the intensity spectrum of the remaining unresolved component. Furthermore, statistical methods have recently been proven to outperform the sensitivity of classic source detection algorithms in finding point-source populations in the unresolved flux regime. In this article, we employ the 1-point photon count statistics of eight years of Fermi-…
Constraining the physical properties of large-scale jets from black hole X-ray binaries and their impact on the local environment with blast-wave dynamical models
Extremely peculiar emission lines have been found in the spectra of some active galactic nuclei and quasars. Their origin is totally unknown. We investigate the hypothesis that they are generated from ultra-rapid quasi-periodic oscillations that may occur in jets or black holes, as predicted in a published theoretical paper. We conclude that, although not totally certain, this hypothesis is just as valid as the other highly peculiar hypotheses that have been previously made (e.g. blueshifts due to bulk motions close to the speed of light). We consider ways to further validate our hypothesis.
Over the past two decades, the most commonly adopted explanation for high and hard X-ray emission in resolved quasar jets has been inverse Compton upscattering of the Cosmic Microwave Background (IC/CMB), which requires jets which remain highly relativistic on 10-1000 kpc scales. In more recent years various lines of observational evidence, including gamma-ray upper limits, have disfavored this explanation in favor of a synchrotron origin. While the IC/CMB model generally predicts a high level of gamma-ray emission, it has never been detected. Here we report the detection of a low-state Fermi/…
Extragalactic jets are launched from the innermost regions of galaxies, near the central supermassive black hole. As they propagate, they must cross the whole galaxy, and in this process they interact with a variety of obstacles; including gas clouds, populations of stars or even supernova remnants. The interaction between jets and penetrating obstacles has been studied as a possible method for jet mass-loading and deceleration, as well as of production of gamma-ray emission, through non-thermal particles accelerated in shocks. Interaction with individual objects, such as stars or gas clouds, …
Extragalactic jets are the most powerful persistent sources of the universe. Those pointing at us are called blazars. Their relativistically boosted emission extends from radio frequencies to TeV energies. They are also suspected to be the sources of energetic neutrinos and high energies cosmic rays. The study of their overall spectrum indicates that most of the emission of powerful blazars is in hard X-rays or in soft gamma-rays. In this band we can find the most powerful jets, visible also at high redshifts. It is found that the jet power is linked to the accretion luminosity, and exceeds it…
The jets of active galactic nuclei can carry a large fraction of the accreted power of the black-hole system into interstellar and even extragalactic space. They radiate profusely from radio to X-ray and gamma-ray frequencies. In the most extreme cases, the outward flow speeds correspond to high Lorentz factors that can reach 40 or more. This chapter displays images at various wavebands as well as light curves and continuum spectra that illustrate the variability with location, time, and frequency of the emission from compact, parsec- and subparsec-scale jets. It presents a physical framework …
Constraining the Photon Intensity of Extragalactic Background Light with the HAWC Observatory for the Blazar Mrk 421
Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México（墨西哥国立自治大学物理研究所）；Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas（恰帕斯自治大学）；Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México（墨西哥国立自治大学天文学研究所）；Universidad de Costa Rica（哥斯达黎加大学）；Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo（米却肯圣尼古拉斯德伊达尔戈大学）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University（密歇根州立大学物理与天文系）；Temple University（天普大学）
VERITAS is an array of four 12-m diameter imaging atmospheric-Cherenkov telescopes located in southern Arizona. Its aim is to study the very high energy (VHE: E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission from astrophysical objects. In addition to the study of blazars, the VERITAS extragalactic science program develops a comprehensive observational program of extragalactic non-blazar sources. The study of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is intensively pursued through the large MWL observational campaign on non-blazar radio galaxies. The success of these MWL campaigns has for the first time provided insights to…
As smaller analogs of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), X-ray Binaries (XRBs) are also capable of launching jets that accelerate particles to high energies. In this work, we reexamine XRB jets as potential sources of high-energy cosmic rays (CRs) and explore whether they could provide a significant second Galactic component to the CR spectrum. In the most intriguing scenario, XRB-CRs could dominate the observed spectrum above the so-called "knee" feature at $\sim 3 \times 10^{15}$ eV, offering an explanation for several key issues in this transition zone from Galactic to extragalactic CRs. We disc…
Extragalactic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) are divided into two morphological types, namely Fanaroff-Riley I (FRI) and Fanaroff-Riley II (FRII). The former show decollimated structure at the kiloparsec scales and are thought to be decelerated by entrainment within the first kiloparsecs of evolution inside the host galaxy. The entrainment and deceleration can be, at least partly, due to the interaction of jets with stellar winds and gas clouds that enter in the jet as they orbit around the galactic centre. In this contribution, I review recent simulations to study the dynamic effect of …
To investigate parsec-scale jet flow conditions during GeV gamma-ray flares detected by the Fermi Large Angle Telescope, we obtained centimeter-band total flux density and linear polarization monitoring observations from 2009.5 through 2012.5 with the 26-meter Michigan radio telescope for a sample of core-dominated blazars. We use these data to constrain radiative transfer simulations incorporating propagating shocks oriented at an arbitrary angle to the flow direction in order to set limits on the jet flow and shock parameters during flares temporally associated with gamma-ray flares in 0420-…
We probe the role of the directional asymmetry between relativistic outflows to kilo-parsec scale jets in the propagation and acceleration of cosmic rays. Our sample contains powerful AGN hosting dense cluster environments. We attempt a thorough description of where and when ultra high energy cosmic ray production and acceleration takes place also using radio observations of the large scale stucture of the AGNs and X-ray data of the hot dense gas in which the AGNs are situated. As far as the cosmic ray primaries are concerned, the presence of relativistic protons or mildly relativistic electro…
A list of 205 gamma-ray strong objects was reported recently as a result of a 3-month integration with the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. We attempted identification of these objects, cross-correlating the gamma-ray positions with VLBI positions of a large all-sky sample of extragalactic radio sources selected on the basis of their parsec-scale flux density. The original associations reported by the Fermi team are confirmed and six new identifications are suggested. A Monte-Carlo analysis shows that the fraction of chance associations in our analysis is less…
Using high-resolution radio imaging with VLBI techniques, the TANAMI program has been observing the parsec-scale radio jets of southern (declination south of -30°) gamma-ray bright AGN simultaneously with Fermi/LAT monitoring of their gamma-ray emission. We present the radio and gamma-ray properties of the TANAMI sources based on one year of contemporaneous TANAMI and Fermi/LAT data. A large fraction (72%) of the TANAMI sample can be associated with bright gamma-ray sources for this time range. Association rates differ for different optical classes with all BL Lacs, 76% of quasars and just 17%…
The most powerful persistent accelerators in the Universe are jetted active galaxies. Blazars, galaxies whose jets are directed towards Earth, dominate the extragalactic gamma-ray sky. Still, most of the highest-energy particle accelerators likely elude detection. These extreme blazars, whose radiated energy can peak beyond 10 TeV, are ideal targets to study particle acceleration and radiative processes, and may provide links to cosmic rays and astrophysical neutrinos. The growing number of extreme blazars observed at TeV energies has been critical for the emergence of gamma-ray cosmology, inc…
