Waiting times between gamma-ray flares of Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars, and constraints on emission processes

Abstract

The physical scenario responsible for gamma-ray flaring activity and its location for Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars is still debated. The study of the statistical distribution of waiting-times between flares (the time intervals between consecutive activity peaks) can give information on the distribution of flaring times, and constrain the physical mechanism responsible for gamma-ray emission. We adopt here a Scan-Statistic driven clustering method (iSRS) to recognize flaring states within the FERMI-LAT data, and identify the time of activity-peaks. Results: Flares waiting times can be described with a poissonian process, consisting of a set of overlapping bursts of flares, with an average burst duration of about 0.6 year, and average rate of 1.3/y . For waiting times below 1d host-frame we found a statistically-relevant second population, the fast-component, mainly from CTA 102 data. The period of conspicuous detection of the fast component for CTA 102 coincides with the crossing-time of the superluminal K1 feature with the C1 stationary feature in radio reported in Jorstad et al. (2017); Casadio et al. (2019). Conclusions: To reconcile the mechanism proposed in Jorstad et al. (2017); Casadio et al. (2019) with the bursting-activity, we have to assume that plasma streams with a typical length of about 2pc (in the stream reference-frame) reach the recollimation-shock. Otherwise, the distribution of waiting-times can be interpreted as originating from relativistic-plasma moving along the jet for a deprojected length of about 30-50pc (assuming a Lorentz-factor=10), that sporadically produces gamma-ray flares. In magnetic-reconnection scenario, reconnection events or plasma injection to the reconnection-sites should be intermittent. Individual plasmoids can be resolved in a few favourable cases only (Christie et al., 2019); they could be responsible for the fast component.

15 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication on Astronomy and astrophysics

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