Variable Gamma-ray Emission Induced by Ultra-High Energy Neutral Beams: Application to 4C +21.35

Abstract

The flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) 4C +21.35 (PKS 1222+216) displays prominent nuclear infrared emission from ~1200 K dust. A 70 -- 400 GeV flare with ~10 min variations during half an hour of observations was found by the MAGIC telescopes, and GeV variability was observed on sub-day timescales with the Large Area Telescope on Fermi. We examine 4C +21.35, assuming that it is a source of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). UHECR proton acceleration in the inner jet powers a neutral beam of neutrinos, neutrons and gamma rays from photopion production. The radiative efficiency and production spectra of neutrals formed through photohadronic processes with isotropic external target photons of the broad line region and torus are calculated. Secondary radiations made by this process have a beaming factor ~δ^5, where δis the Doppler factor. The pair-production optical depth for gamma rays and the photopion efficiency for UHECR neutrons as they pass through external isotropic radiation fields are calculated. If target photons come from the broad line region and dust torus, large Doppler factors, δ>~100 are required to produce rapidly variable secondary radiation with isotropic luminosity >~1e47 erg/s at the pc scale. The γ-ray spectra from leptonic secondaries are calculated from cascades initiated by the UHECR neutron beam at the pc-scale region and fit to the flaring spectrum of 4C +21.35. Detection of >~100 TeV neutrinos from 4C +21.35 or other VHE blazars with IceCube or KM3NeT would confirm this scenario.

21 pages, 13 figures; replaced 4 figures to show neutron and neutrino production from combined infrared and broad-line region radiation fields; added references and improvements; ApJ, in press

References in corpus (24)

• The Second Catalog of Active Galactic Nuclei Detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• Fast TeV variability in blazars: jets in a jet
• The power of blazar jets
• Very-High-Energy Gamma Rays from a Distant Quasar: How Transparent Is the Universe?
• MAGIC discovery of VHE Emission from the FSRQ PKS 1222+21
• Synchrotron Self-Compton Analysis of TeV X-ray Selected BL Lacertae Objects
• The blazar sequence: a new perspective
• Implications of very rapid TeV variability in blazars
• Spectroscopy of Broad Line Blazars from 1LAC
• Multiwavelength Observations of Markarian 421 in March 2001: an Unprecedented View on the X-ray/TeV Correlated Variability
• GeV breaks in blazars as a result of gamma-ray absorption within the broad-line region
• Giant AGN Flares and Cosmic Ray Bursts
• High energy neutrino early afterglows from gamma-ray bursts revisited
• Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays from Black Hole Jets of Radio Galaxies
• A unifying view of Gamma Ray Burst Afterglows
• Recollimation and Radiative Focusing of Relativistic Jets: Applications to Blazars and M87
• Evidence for an axion-like particle from PKS 1222+216?
• Acceleration of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays in the Colliding Shells of Blazars and GRBs: Constraints from the Fermi Gamma ray Space Telescope
• High-Energy Emission Induced by Ultra-High-Energy Photons as a Probe of Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic-Ray Accelerators Embedded in the Cosmic Web
• A test on external Compton models for $\gamma$-ray active galactic nuclei
• Models for the Spectral Energy Distributions and Variability of Blazars
• Correlation of Photon and Neutrino Fluxes in Blazars and Gamma Ray Bursts
• Rapid Variability of Gamma-ray Emission from Sites near the 43 GHz Cores of Blazar Jets
• Short time scale variability at gamma rays in FSRQs and implications on the current models

Cited by in corpus (74)

• MAGIC discovery of VHE Emission from the FSRQ PKS 1222+21
• Diffuse Neutrino Intensity from the Inner Jets of Active Galactic Nuclei: Impacts of External Photon Fields and the Blazar Sequence
• A Multimessenger Picture of the Flaring Blazar TXS 0506+056: implications for High-Energy Neutrino Emission and Cosmic Ray Acceleration
• A hadronic origin for ultra-high-frequency-peaked BL Lac objects
• Constraining High-Energy Cosmic Neutrino Sources: Implications and Prospects
• Reconnection-driven plasmoids in blazars: fast flares on a slow envelope
• Blazar Flares as an Origin of High-Energy Cosmic Neutrinos?
• Cascading Constraints from Neutrino Emitting Blazars: The case of TXS 0506+056
• Equipartition Gamma-Ray Blazars and the Location of the Gamma-Ray Emission Site in 3C 279
• Low-luminosity gamma-ray bursts as the sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray nuclei
• Investigation of two Fermi-LAT gamma-ray blazars coincident with high-energy neutrinos detected by IceCube
• Constraining the Location of Gamma-Ray Flares in Luminous Blazars
• A hadronuclear interpretation of a high-energy neutrino event coincident with a blazar flare
• Multi-Epoch Modeling of TXS 0506+056 and Implications for Long-Term High-Energy Neutrino Emission
• Evidence for an axion-like particle from PKS 1222+216?
• Gamma-Ray and Hard X-Ray Emission from Pulsar-Aided Supernovae as a Probe of Particle Acceleration in Embryonic Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• A two-zone model for blazar emission: implications for TXS 0506+056 and the neutrino event IceCube-170922A
• Gamma-Ray and Neutrino Backgrounds as Probes of the High-Energy Universe: Hints of Cascades, General Constraints, and Implications for TeV Searches
• Leptonic and Hadronic Radiative Processes in Supermassive-Black-Hole Jets
• High energy neutrino flux from individual blazar flares
• The physical properties of Fermi BL Lac objects jets
• Emitting electrons spectra and acceleration processes in the jet of Mrk 421: from low state to giant flare state
• A Neutral Beam Model for High-Energy Neutrino Emission from the Blazar TXS 0506+056
• Multi-color optical monitoring of the quasar 3C 273 from 2005 to 2016
• PKS 1502+106: A high-redshift Fermi blazar at extreme angular resolution. Structural dynamics with VLBI imaging up to 86 GHz
• Neutrino Echoes from Multimessenger Transient Sources
• Multifrequency Studies of the Peculiar Quasar 4C +21.35 During the 2010 Flaring Activity
• Axion-like Particles Implications for High-Energy Astrophysics
• High-energy neutrinos from sources in clusters of galaxies
• Expected signatures from hadronic emission processes in the TeV spectra of BL Lac objects
• The physical properties of $Fermi$-4LAC flat spectrum radio quasars
• Comprehensive Multimessenger Modeling of the Extreme Blazar 3HSP J095507.9+355101 and Predictions for IceCube
• The far emission region of the gamma-ray blazar PKS B1424-418
• Proton Synchrotron $\gamma$-rays and the Energy Crisis in Blazars
• Fermi Large Area Telescope Detection of Two Very-High-Energy (E>100 GeV) Gamma-ray Photons from the z = 1.1 Blazar PKS 0426-380
• The TeV emission of Ap Librae: a hadronic interpretation and prospects for CTA
• Understanding the TeV emission from a distant blazar PKS 1424+240 in a lepto-hadronic jet model
• Multicolor Optical Monitoring of the Blazar S5 0716+714 from 2017 to 2019
• On the minimum jet power of TEV BL Lac objects in the p-$\gamma$ model
• Near-Equipartition Jets with Log-Parabola Electron Energy Distribution and the Blazar Spectral-Index Diagrams
• Brightest Fermi-LAT Flares of PKS 1222+216: Implications on Emission and Acceleration Processes
• Unveiling the nature of the gamma-ray emitting AGN PKS 0521-36
• Multi-TeV flaring from blazars: Markarian 421 a case study
• The physical properties of \textit{Fermi} TeV BL Lac objects jets
• Characterization of Variability in Blazar Light curves
• Unified thermal model for photohadronic neutrino production in astrophysical sources
• Multi-color optical monitoring of the BL Lacertae object S5 0716+714 during the 2012 outburst
• Studies of active galactic nuclei with CTA
• Constraining photohadronic scenarios for the unified origin of IceCube neutrinos and ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays
• Nuclear and electromagnetic cascades induced by ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays in radio galaxies: implications for Centaurus A
• Search for Blazar Flux-Correlated TeV Neutrinos in IceCube 40-String Data
• Synchrotron pair halo and echo emission from blazars in the cosmic web: application to extreme TeV blazars
• Bounds on the origin of extragalactic ultrahigh energy cosmic rays from the IceCube neutrino observations
• Near-future discovery of point sources of ultra-high-energy neutrinos
• The Blazar Emission Environment: Insight from Soft X-ray Absorption
• Multicolour Optical Variability Monitoring of Blazars with High Time Resolution
• High-energy neutrino emission associated with gravitational-wave signals: effects of cocoon photons and constraints on late-time emission
• Neutrino Production in Electromagnetic Cascades: An extra component of cosmogenic neutrino at ultrahigh energies
• Constraining the redshifts of TeV BL Lac objects
• Light curves of BSM-induced neutrino echoes in the optically-thin limit
• Blazar jets as possible sources of ultra-high energy photons: a short review
• Location of gamma-ray flaring region in quasar 4C +21.35
• High-Energy Neutrinos from Blazar Flares and Implications of TXS 0506+056
• Insights from leptohadronic modelling of the brightest blazar flare
• Attenuation of TeV $\gamma$-rays by the starlight photon field of the host galaxy
• Multi-messenger emission from the parsec-scale jet of the flat-spectrum radio quasar PKS 1502+106 coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-190730A
• Obscured $pp$-channel neutrino sources
• Optical Monitoring and Long-term Optical Spectral Variability of BL Lacertae Object S5 0716+714
• Modeling Fermi Large Area Telescope and Multiwavelength Data from Blazars
• Theory of high-energy messengers
• A test of the hadronic origin of $\gamma$-rays from blazars with up to month-later follow-up of IceCube Alerts with Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes
• JD6 - The Connection between Radio Properties and High Energy Emission in AGNs
• Physical origin of very-high-energy gamma rays from the low-luminosity active galactic nucleus NGC 4278 and implications for neutrino observations
• Aspects of astrophysical particle production and beyond the Standard Model phenomenology