Relation between Events in the Millimeter-wave Core and Gamma-ray Outbursts in Blazar Jets

Abstract

Analysis of comprehensive monitoring of 34 gamma-ray bright quasars, BL Lac objects, and radio galaxies reveals a close connection between events in the millimeter-wave emission imaged with the VLBA at 43 GHz and flares at gamma-ray and lower frequencies. Roughly 2/3 of the flares are coincident with the appearance of a new superluminal knot and/or a flare in the millimeter-wave "core'" located parsecs from the central engine. This presents a theoretical challenge to explain how the gamma-ray flux can often be variable on intra-day time-scales. Possible answers to this include very narrow opening angles of the jet, small volume filling factors of the highest energy electrons, chaotic magnetic fields, and turbulent velocity fields relative to the mean jet flow.

2012 Fermi & Jansky Proceedings - eConf C1111101

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Constraining the Location of Gamma-Ray Flares in Luminous Blazars
• Gamma-ray flaring activity from the gravitationally lensed blazar PKS 1830-211 observed by Fermi LAT
• Multifrequency Studies of the Peculiar Quasar 4C +21.35 During the 2010 Flaring Activity
• Multiband Observations of the Quasar PKS 2326-502 during Active and Quiescent Gamma-Ray States in 2010-2012
• Blazars in Context in the Fermi Era
• The blazar paradigm and its discontents
• Turbulent Extreme Multi-Zone Model for Multi-Waveband Variations of Blazars