Very Rapid High-amplitude Gamma-Ray Variability in Luminous Blazar PKS 1510-089 Studied with Fermi-LAT

Here we report on the detailed analysis of the γ-ray light curve of a luminous blazar PKS 1510-089 observed in the GeV range with the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi satellite during the period 2011 September-December. By investigating the properties of the detected three major flares with the shortest possible time binning allowed by the photon statistics, we find a variety of temporal characteristics and variability patterns. This includes a clearly asymmetric profile (with a faster flux rise and a slower decay) of the flare resolved on sub-daily timescales, a superposition of many short uncorrelated flaring events forming the apparently coherent longer-duration outburst, and a huge single isolated outburst unresolved down to the timescale of 3 hr. In the latter case we estimate the corresponding γ-ray flux doubling timescale to be below 1 hr, which is extreme and never previously reported for any active galaxy in the GeV range. The other unique finding is that the total power released during the studied rapid and high-amplitude flares constitutes the bulk of the power radiatively dissipated in the source and a significant fraction of the total kinetic luminosity of the underlying relativistic outflow. Our analysis allows us to access directly the characteristic timescales involved in shaping the energy dissipation processes in the source, and to provide constraints on the location and the structure of the blazar emission zone in PKS 1510-089.