Narrow Results

The extragalactic gamma-ray sky is dominated by two classes of sources: Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) and radio loud active galactic nuclei whose jets are pointing at us (blazars). We believe that the radiation we receive from them originates from the transformation of bulk relativistic energy into random energy. Although the mechanisms to produce, collimate and accelerate the jets in these sources are uncertain, it is fruitful to compare the characteristics of both classes of sources in search of enlightening similarities. I will review some general characteristics of radio loud AGNs and GRBs and I will discuss the possibility that both classes of sources can work in the same way. Finally, I will discuss some recent exciting prospects to use blazars to put constraints on the cosmic IR-Optical-UV backgrounds, and to use GRBs as standard candles to measure the Universe.

H.E.S.S. is an experiment for ground based GeV/TeV gamma ray astronomy of the new generation. It consists of four large Cherenkov telescopes operating in stereoscopic observation mode. Its construction in Namibia was completed at the end of 2003. Already during the installation phase, exciting results have been achieved, and after completion several discoveries have been made. Some of the results and discoveries are reported, such as the first image of a shell-type supernova remnant resolved at arc minute scale (RXJ 1713 – 3946), the discovery of the unique binary pulsar system PSR B1259 – 63 and of a yet-unidentified source in the same field of view (HESS J1303 – 631), and the observation of the galactic centre region. Amongst the extragalactic sources, the blazers Mkn 421 and PKS 2155 – 304 have also been detected.

The new distant metagalactic γ-sources 1739+522 (z = 1.375) and 3c454.3 (z = 0.857) are detected at energies E > 0.8 TeV with the fluxes (0.53 ± 0.10) × 10^-12cm^-2s^-1 and (0.43 ± 0.13) × 10^-12cm^-2s^-1, respectively. The γ-ray spectra and fluxes of known blazars Mkn 421, Mkn 501 and distant flat-spectrum radio quasars 1739+522 and 3c454.3 are presented.

Various aspects of the high-energy emission from relativistic jets associated with compact astrophysical systems are reviewed. The main leptonic and hadronic processes responsible for the production of high-energy γ-rays, very-high-energy neutrinos and ultra-high energy cosmic rays are discussed. Relations between the γγ pair production and photomeson production opacities are derived, and their consequences for the relative emission of γ-rays and neutrinos are examined. The scaling of the size and location of the various emission zones and other quantities with black hole mass and dimensionless luminosity is elucidated. The results are applied to individual classes of objects, including blazars, microquasars and gamma-ray bursts. It is concluded that if baryons are present in the jet at sufficient quantities, then under optimal conditions most systems exhibiting relativistic jets may be detectable by upcoming neutrino telescopes. An exception is the class of TeV blazars, for which γ-ray observations imply neutrino yields well below detection limit.

VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System), an array of ground-based gamma-ray telescopes in southern Arizona, USA, has been taking data in hardware stereo mode since March, 2006. The April–May 2006 dark run provided a large set of data from two telescopes on the known blazar Markarian (Mrk) 421. An initial analysis produced a light curve and preliminary cuts showing the two telescope array's angular resolution to be 0.19°. The remaining two VERITAS telescopes will be brought online by January, 2007.

In this paper, we introduce a new composite spectral indices α_γxγ = α_xγ - α_γ, and prove , that means α_γxγ is intrinsic. We plot a α_xox - α_γxγ diagram for 25 Gev γ-ray blazars for which α_x and α_γ have been provided in the literature, where α_xox = α_ox - α_x which was introduced by Sambruna et al. (1996) and proved that it is intrinsic by our previous paper (Xie et al. 2001). Using this new composite color–color (α_xox - α_γxγ) diagram, we investigated the nature of the HBLs–LBLs relationship, and the BL Lacs–FSRQs relationship, in high-energy emission. The results show that the spectral energy distributions of three subclasses of Gev γ-ray loud blazars are different, but essentially continuous: HBLs and FSRQs occupy separated regions while LBLs bridge the gap between HBLs and FSRQs. The results are consistent with that derived from a low energy color–color(α_xox - α_oro) diagram by Sambruna et al. (1996) and Xie et al. (2001). However, on the α_ox - α_xγ diagram, FSRQs, LBLs and HBLs occupy same region. Because both α_γxγ and α_xox are intrinsic, thus, the new connection among HBLs, LBLs and FSRQs obtained by us is intrinsic.

The present status of the blazar spectral sequence is discussed, including new findings about blazars selected with different criteria than the original complete radio-samples. Despite extensive searches of blazars "breaking" the sequence, the original idea proposed 10 years ago still seems to hold. On the other hand, the forthcoming launch of the GLAST satellite will provide a new selection band for blazars and blazar related populations as well as fantastic progress on the spectra and variability behaviour of presently known blazars. The order of magnitude increase in sensitivity of GLAST will allow detection of γ-rays from jets with lower power and/or lower beaming factor, thus sampling a much wider population.

Through the modelling of the spectral energy distribution of blazars, we can infer the physical parameters required to originate the flux we see. Then we can estimate the power of blazar jets in the form of matter and fields. These estimates are rather robust for all classes of blazars, although they are in part dependent on the chosen model (i.e. leptonic rather than hadronic). The indication is that, in almost all cases, the carried Poynting flux is not dominant, while protons should carry most of the power. In emission line blazars the jet has a comparable, and often larger, power than the luminosity of the accretion disk. This is even more true for line–less BL Lacs. If the jet is structured at the sub–pc scale, with a fast spine surrounded by a slower layer, then one component sees the radiation of the other boosted, and this interplay enhances the inverse Compton flux of both. Since the layer emission is less beamed, it can be seen also at large viewing angles, making radio-galaxies very interesting GLAST candidates. Such structures need not be stable components, and can form and disappear rapidly. Ultrafast TeV variability is challenging all existing models, suggesting that at least parts of the jets are moving with large bulk Lorentz factors and at extremely small viewing angles. However, these fast "bullets" are not necessarily challenging our main ideas about the energetics and the composition of the bulk of the jet.

After more than 30 years since the last X–ray polarimetric measurements, performed in the 70's by the OSO-8 satellite, thanks to recent technological advances, polarimetry is considered again as a viable technique for studing X–ray sources. In this contribution the author briefly discusses a couple of astrophysical situations, related to the topics of this conference, where X–ray polarimetry can be extremely useful. The author also discusses the observational perspectives, listing the main future space missions (proposed or even already approved) carrying on-board an X–ray polarimeter.

A brief overview of jets and their central drivers is presented, with a focus on accreting black hole systems. In particular, scaling relations that elucidate some basic properties of the engines are derived, and the implications for the associated outflows are discussed. The kinematics and dynamics of relativistic jets in various systems and the dissipation of their bulk energy is considered, with an emphasis on consequences of recent observations. Also considered is the interaction of the jets with their environment. Comments on multi-messenger probes are made at the end.

The first three months of sky-survey operation with the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi satellite revealed 132 bright sources at |b| > 10° with test statistic greater than 100 (corresponding to about 10σ). Two methods, based on the CGRaBS, CRATES and BZCat catalogs, indicated high-confidence associations of 106 of these sources with known AGNs. This sample is referred to as the LAT Bright AGN Sample (LBAS). It contains two radio galaxies, namely Centaurus A and NGC 1275, and 104 blazars consisting of 58 flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), 42 BL Lac objects, and four blazars with unknown classification. Remarkably, the LBAS includes 10 high-energy-peaked BL Lacs. Only 33 of the sources, plus two at |b| < 10°, were previously detected with EGRET, probably due to variability. The analysis of the gamma-ray properties of the LBAS sources reveals that the average GeV spectra of BL Lac objects are significantly harder than the spectra of FSRQs. Other spectral and variability blazar properties are discussed. Some prominent Fermi-detected radiogalaxies are presented.

In this work, we used the preliminary data of University of Michigan Radio Astronomy Observatory (UMRAO) for the spectral index calculation for two blazars, 3C 273 (1226+023) and 3C 446 (2223-052), and found that the spectral indices are variable. Therefore, we used three methods (Jurkevich method (J), the discrete correlation analysis (D), and the Periodogram method (P)) to investigate the period in the spectral index variation curves. The results show that 3C 273 has a quasi-period of 8.8 ± 1.3 yr, and 3C 446 has a period of 5.8 ± 1.2 yr.

Modeling implications of recent VERITAS discoveries of Intermediate BL Lac Objects (IBLs) are presented. Leptonic jet models for the IBLs W Comae (z = 0.102) and 3C 66A (z = 0.444) are, in principle, viable with only synchrotron and synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) components, but more plausible parameters can be achieved including an external infrared radiation field as source for Compton upscattering to produce the observed VHE gamma-ray emission. The unknown redshift of PKS 1424+240 makes a theoretical interpretation difficult. A pure SSC model seems to be sufficient to represent its SED, and modeling results favor a low redshift of z ≲ 0.1.

Recent observations of blazars at high energy (0.1–100 GeV) and very high energy (> 0.1 TeV) have provided important constraints on the intensity and spectrum of the diffuse extragalactic background light (EBL), shedding light on its main origin. Several issues remain open, however, in particular in the mid- and far-infrared bands and in the blazar emission at multi-TeV energies. This review summarizes the observational and theoretical progress in the study of the EBL with gamma-rays and the most promising future improvements, which are mainly expected from spectra in the multi-TeV range.

The discovery of very-high-energy gamma-ray emission from Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars (FSRQs) by ground-based Cherenkov telescopes (HESS, MAGIC, VERITAS) provides a new view of blazar emission processes. The available data from multiwavelength observations of FSRQs, allow us to constrain the size (possibly also location) of the emitting region, magnetic field, electron energy distribution, etc., which are crucial for the understanding of the jet properties. We investigate the origin of emission from FSRQs (PKS 1510-089, PKS 1222+216 and 3C 279) by modeling the broadband spectral energy distribution in their quiescent and flaring states, using estimation of the parameter space that describes the underlying particle distribution responsible for the emission through the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique.

After updating the status of the measurements of the cosmic neutrino flux by the IceCube experiment, we summarize the observations of the first identified source of cosmic rays and speculate on the connection between the two observations.

Recently Spavieri and Rodriguez had proposed a table top experiment using Aharanov–Bohm type effects to determine the mass of a photon and concluded that a value as small as 10^-51 g is achievable. It is pointed out in this paper that this value is already much higher than latest experimental limits. Furthermore, the author's work over the past years has, on the other hand, indicated that the photon has a mass ~10^-65g = 10^-33eV. We point out in this papers that recent observations from three different viewpoints, which are not table top experiments, but rather the time lag in cosmic gamma rays with different frequencies, the observation of the spectra of blazars and an analysis of the CMB power spectrum from the WMAP data, all vindicate this conclusion and remarkably, this value.

Most of the electromagnetic output of blazars (BL Lac objects and Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars) comes out in the γ–ray band, making the Large Area Telescope [0.1–100 GeV] onboard the Fermi satellite and the Cherenkov telescopes crucial for gather crucial data and thus to understand their physics. These data are complemented by the observations of the Swift satellite in the X–ray and optical–UV bands, and by ground based optical and radio telescopes. This rich coverage of the spectrum allows a robust modelling, from which important trends start to emerge. In powerful sources we see the contribution of the accretion disk that, once modeled, give us the black hole mass and the accretion rate. Even when not directly visible, the disk luminosity can be derived through the broad emission lines. Therefore we start to know the jet power, the disk luminosity, and the black hole mass, 3 crucial ingredients if we want to draw a general scenario. At the start, jets are believed to be magnetically dominated. And yet, on the scale where they emit most of their luminosity, their power is already in the form of kinetic energy of particles. Relativistic jets are formed for a very broad range of the disk luminosity, from close to Eddington down to at least 10^-4 Eddington. Their power correlates with the accretion rate, and can be even more powerful than the accretion disk luminosity.

The problem of the hard (intrinsic) γ-ray source spectra in TeV blazars is examined. We show that relativistic Maxwell-like particle distributions provide a suitable interpretation for the inferred hard, very high energy (VHE) photon spectra. We discuss the potential of these distributions to produce broader and softer spectra if multiple zones contribute to the observed emission. We show that the dominance of one component could lead to a VHE flaring state with hard spectral features, like the one observed for Mkn 501 in July 2009.

More than fifty extragalactic very high energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) sources have been found using ground-based imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, about twenty of which have been discovered using the H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic System) experiment based in Namibia. Even though BL Lac objects are the dominant class of VHE detected extragalactic objects, other types of sources (starburst galaxies, radio galaxies or flat spectrum radio quasars) begin to emerge. A review of the extragalactic sources studied with H.E.S.S. is given, with an emphasis on new results.