Blazar flares powered by plasmoids in relativistic reconnection

Abstract

Powerful flares from blazars with short ($\sim$ min) variability timescales are challenging for current models of blazar emission. Here, we present a physically motivated ab initio model for blazar flares based on the results of recent particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of relativistic magnetic reconnection. PIC simulations demonstrate that quasi-spherical plasmoids filled with high-energy particles and magnetic fields are a self-consistent by-product of the reconnection process. By coupling our PIC-based results (i.e., plasmoid growth, acceleration profile, particle and magnetic content) with a kinetic equation for the evolution of the electron distribution function we demonstrate that relativistic reconnection in blazar jets can produce powerful flares whose temporal and spectral properties are consistent with the observations. In particular, our model predicts correlated synchrotron and synchrotron self-Compton flares of duration of several hours--days powered by the largest and slowest moving plasmoids that form in the reconnection layer. Smaller and faster plasmoids produce flares of sub-hour duration with higher peak luminosities than those powered by the largest plasmoids. Yet, the observed fluence in both types of flares is similar. Multiple flares with a range of flux-doubling timescales (minutes to several hours) observed over a longer period of flaring activity (days or longer) may be used as a probe of the reconnection layer's orientation and the jet's magnetization. Our model shows that blazar flares are naturally expected as a result of magnetic reconnection in a magnetically-dominated jet.

20 pages, 13 figures, submitted to MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (38)

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• Recent Progress on Particle Acceleration and Reconnection Physics during Magnetic Reconnectionin the Magnetically-dominated Relativistic Regime
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• PIC Simulation Methods for Cosmic Radiation and Plasma Instabilities
• A unified model for orphan and multi-wavelength blazar flares
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• Gamma-ray observations of low-luminosity active galactic nuclei
• Investigating the multiwavelength behaviour of the flat spectrum radio quasar CTA 102 during 2013-2017
• A hadronic minute-scale GeV flare from quasar 3C 279?
• Radiation Signatures From Striped Blazar Jet
• Blazar variability power spectra from radio up to TeV photon energies: Mrk 421 and PKS 2155-304
• The sequence of Compton dominance in blazars based on data from WISE and Fermi/LAT
• High-energy synchrotron flares powered by strongly radiative relativistic magnetic reconnection: 2D and 3D PIC simulations
• A Steady-State Spectral Model For Electron Acceleration And Cooling In Blazar Jets: Application To 3C 279
• A fully-kinetic model for orphan gamma-ray flares in blazars
• On the relative importance of hadronic emission processes along the jet axis of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Particle acceleration and synchrotron self-Compton emission in blazar jets I : an application to the quiescent emission
• Blazar jet evolution revealed by multi-epoch broadband radio polarimetry
• Ultrafast Variability in AGN Jets: Intermittency and Lighthouse Effect
• Meeting the Challenge from Bright and Fast Gamma-Ray Flares of 3C 279
• Similarity of Jet Radiation between Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars and GeV Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies: A Universal $\delta$-$L_{\mathrm{c}}$ Correlation
• Radio VLBA polarization and multi-band monitoring of the high-redshift quasar S5 0836+710 during a high activity period
• Multi-messenger emission from magnetic reconnection in blazar jets: the case of TXS 0506+056
• Correlations between $\gamma$-ray luminosity and magnetization of the jet as well as relativistic electron injection power:cases for Mrk 421, 3C 454.3 and 3C 279
• A Precessing Jet Scenario for the Multi-Wavelength Long-Term Modulation of LS I +61${}^{\circ }$303
• Chromatic optical polarization of BL Lac: while faint and bright
• Quantitative comparisons of VHE gamma-ray blazar flares with relativistic reconnection models
• The impact of resistive electric fields on particle acceleration in reconnection layers
• Radio/X-ray correlations and variability in the X-ray binary LS I +61°303
• Spectral Diversities of Gamma-ray Bursts in High Energy Bands: Hints from Turbulent Cascade
• Variability Signatures of a Burst Process in Flaring Gamma-ray Blazars
• Progress in Multiwavelength and Multi-Messenger Observations of Blazars and Theoretical Challenges
• Constraining the $\gamma$-ray Emission Region for Fermi-Detected FSRQs by the Seed Photon Approach
• The blazar sequence revised
• Non-ideal fields solve the injection problem in relativistic reconnection
• Probing Magnetic Fields and Acceleration Mechanisms in Blazar Jets with X-ray Polarimetry
• Pair-Regulated Klein-Nishina Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection with Applications to Blazars and Accreting Black Holes