The New Blazar Divide: Inverse Compton Emission in Strong and Weak Jets
Abstract
In examining a select sample of over 200 blazars of known jet kinetic power (Lkin) and well-characterized SEDs, we found (Meyer et al., 2011) that Intermediate synchrotron-peaking (ISP) blazars may have lower gamma-ray output than high synchrotron-peaking (HSP) blazars of similar Lkin, consistent with our hypothesis that ISP blazars are less-beamed versions of HSP blazars, rather than a distinct population. Further, by using the radio core dominance as a measure of relative beaming, we find that gamma-ray luminosity depends on beaming in a consistant way for blazars ranging over all jet kinetic powers (1042 - 1046 ergs s-1). We re-examine the gamma-ray properties of this core sample of blazars using an updated analysis of the 2.5 year Fermi dataset to confirm the initial finding (based on the 1-year LAT catalog, Abdo et al., 2010a). We find that for weak jets, the IC to synchrotron ratio remains constant with increased beaming, consistent with an SSC model for the jet emission, versus EC for the most powerful strong jets.
- Publication:
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AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division #12
- Pub Date:
- September 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011HEAD...12.0717M