paper

Disentangling the synchrotron and Inverse Compton variability in the X-ray emission of the intermediate BL Lac object S5 0716+71

arXiv:astro-ph/0607023 · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20065317

Abstract

The possibility to detect simultaneously in the X-ray band the synchrotron and Inverse Compton (IC)emission of intermediate BL Lac objects offers the unique opportunity to study contemporaneously the low- and high-energy tails of the electron distribution in the jets of these sources. We attempted to disentangle the X-ray spectral variability properties of both the low- and high-energy ends of the synchrotron and Inverse Compton emission of the intermediate BL Lac object S5 0716+71. We carried out spectral, temporal and cross-correlation analyses of the data from a long XMM-Newton pointing of S5 0716+71 and we compared our findings with previous results from past X-ray observations. Strong variability was detected during the XMM exposure.Both the synchrotron and Inverse Compton components were found to vary on time scales of hours, implying a size of the emitting region of $R\la 0.7δ/(1+z)$ light-hours. The synchrotron emission was discovered to become dominant during episodes of flaring activity, following a harder-when-brighter trend. Tight correlations were observed between variations in different energy bands. Upper limits on time lags between the soft and hard X-ray light curves are of the order of a few hundred seconds.

14 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables, A&A in press, minor corrections to match the version to be published

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