Blazar Structure Relativistic Beaming An Example Beaming Away

Blazars are members of a larger group of Active Galaxies, also termed Active Galactic Nuclei (“AGN”). However, blazars are not a homogenous group and can be divided into two groups of galaxies: highly variable quasars, sometimes called Optically Violently Variable (OVV) quasars (these are a small subset of all quasars) and BL Lacertae objects (“BL Lac objects” or simply “BL Lacs”). A few rare objects may be “intermediate blazars” that appear to have a mixture of properties from both OVV quasars and BL Lac objecs.

Blazars are AGN with a relativistic jet that is pointing in the general direction of the Earth. We observe “down” the jet, or nearly so, and this accounts for the rapid variability and compact features of both types of blazars. Many blazars have apparent superluminal features within the first few parsecs of their jets, probably due to relativistic shock fronts.

The generally accepted picture is that OVV quasars are intrinsically powerful radio galaxies while BL Lac objects are intrinsically weak radio galaxies. In both cases the host galaxies are giant ellipticals.

Alternative models, for example gravitational microlensing may account for a few observations of some blazars but are not consistent with the general properties.

1 Structure

Blazars, like all AGN, are ultimately powered by material falling onto a supermassive black hole at the center of the host galaxy. Gas, dust and the occasional star are captured and spiral into this central black hole creating a hot accretion disk which generates enormous amounts of energy in the form of photons, electrons, positrons and other elementary particles. This region is quite small, approximately 10⁻³ parsecs in size.

There is is also a larger opaque torus extending several parsecs from the central black hole, containing a hot gas with embedded regions of higher density. These “clouds” can absorb and then re-emit energy from regions closer to the black hole. On Earth the clouds are detected as emission lines in the blazar spectrumLegend γ Gamma rays HX Hard X-rays SX Soft X-Rays EUV Extreme ultraviolet NUV Near ultraviolet Visible light NIR Near infrared MIR Moderate infrared FIR Far infrared Radio waves EHF Extremely high frequency (Microwaves) SHF Super high frequency (Mic.

Perpendicular to the accretion diskAn accretion disk (or accretion disc is a structure formed by material falling into a gravitational source. Conservation of angular momentum requires that, as a large cloud of material collapses inward, any small rotation it may have will increase. Centri, a pair of relativistic jetsAGN where the relativistic plasma is collimated into jets which escape along the pole of the supermassive black hole ‘’’Relativistic Jets’’’ are powerful plasma emissions which emerge from an Active Galactic Nuclei in the center of a galaxy. Jets are crea carry a highly energetic plasma away from the AGN. The jet is collimated by a combination of intense magnetic fields and power winds from the accretion disk and torus. Inside the jet, high energy photons and particles interact with each other and the strong magnetic field.These relativistic jets can extend as far as many dozens of kiloparsecs from the central black hole.

All of these regions can produce a variety of observed energy, mostly in the form of a nonthermal spectrumLegend γ Gamma rays HX Hard X-rays SX Soft X-Rays EUV Extreme ultraviolet NUV Near ultraviolet Visible light NIR Near infrared MIR Moderate infrared FIR Far infrared Radio waves EHF Extremely high frequency (Microwaves) SHF Super high frequency (Mic ranging from very low frequency radio to extremely energetic gamma rays, with a high polarizationThis article treats polarization in electrodynamics. Other articles treat polarization in electrostatics, polarization in politics and polarization in psychology. In electrodynamics, polarization is a property of waves, such as light and other electromagn (typically a few percent) at some frequencies. The nonthermal spectrum consists of synchrotron radiationSynchrotron radiation refers to electromagnetic radiation similar to cyclotron radiation, but generated by electrons moving at highly relativistic speeds. Synchrotron radiation can be generated by astronomical structures and motions. See also synchrotron in the radio to X-ray range, and inverse Compton emission in the X-ray to gamma-ray region. A thermal spectrum peaking in the ultraviolet region and faint optical emission lines are also present in OVV quasars, but faint or non-existent in BL Lac objects.

2 Relativistic Beaming

The observed emission from a Blazar is greatly enhanced by relativistic effects in the jet, a process termed relativistic beaming.The bulk speed of the plasma that constitues the jet can be in therange of 95% - 99% of the speed of light. (This bulk velocity is ‘’’not’’’ the speed of a typical electron or proton in the jet. The individual particles move in many directions with the result being that the net speed for the plasma is in the range mentioned.)

The relationship between the luminosity emitted in the rest frame of the jet and the luminosity observed from Earth depends on the characteristics of the jet. These include whether the luminosity arises from a shock front or a series of brighter blobs in the jet, as well as details of the magnetic fields within the jet and their interaction with the moving particles.

A simple model of beaming however, illustrates the basic relativistic effects connecting the luminosity emitted in the rest frame of the jet, ‘’S_e’’ and the luminosity observed on Earth, ‘’S_o’’. These are connected by a term refered to in astrophysics as the doppler factor, ‘’D’’, where ‘’S_o’’ is proportional to ‘’S_e’’ times D².

When looked at in much more detail than shown here, three relativistic effects are at involved:

‘’’Relativistic Aberration’’ contributes a factor of D². Aberration is a consequence of special relativity where directions which appear isotropic in the rest frame (in this case, the jet) appear pushed towards the direction of motion in the observer’s frame (in this case, the Earth).
‘’’Time Dilation’’ contributed a factor of D⁺¹. This effect speeds up the apparent release of energy. If the jet emits a burst of energy every minute in its own rest frame this may be observed on Earth as being a much faster release, perhaps one burst every ten seconds.
‘’’Blueshifting’’’ contributes a factor of D⁻¹ and works to decrease the amount of beaming.

2.1 An Example

Consider a jet with an angle to the lines of sight θ = 5 degrees and a speed of 98% of the speed of light. On Earth the observed luminiosity is 70 times that of the emitted luminosity. However if θ is at the minimum value of 0 degrees the jet will appear 600 times brighter from Earth.

2.2 Beaming Away

Relativistic beaming also has another critical consequence. The jet which is not approaching Earth will appear dimmer because of the same relativistic effects. Therefore two intrincially identical jets will appear significantly asymmetric. Indeed, in the example giving above any jet where θ < 35 degrees will be observed on Earth as less luminious than it would be from the rest frame of the jet.

A further consequence is that a population of intrinsically identical AGN scattered in space with random jet orientations will look like a very inhomogeneous population on Earth. The few objects where θ is small will have very bright jets, while the rest will have considerably weaker and asymmetric jets.

This is the essence behind the connection between blazars and radio galaxies. AGN which have jets oriented close to the line of sight with Earth can appear extremely different from other AGN even if they are intrinsically identical.

3 Discovery

Many of the brighter blazars were first identified, not as powerful distant galazies, but as irregular variable stars in our own galaxy. These blazars, like genuine irregular variable stars, changed in brightness on periods of days or years, but with no pattern.

The early development of radio astronomy had shown that there are numerous bright radio sources in the sky. By the end of the 1950s the resolution of radio telescopes was sufficient to be able to identify specific radio sources with optical counterparts, leading to thediscovery of quasars. Blazars were highly represented among these early quasars, and indeed the first redshift was found for 3C273 a highly variable quasar which is also a blazar.

In 1968 a similar connection between the “variable star” BL Lacertae and a powerful radio source was made. BL Lacertae shows many of the characteristics of quasars, but the optical spectrum was devoid of the spectral lines used to detemine redshift. Faint indications of an underlying galaxy – proof that BL Lacertae was not a star – was found in 1974.

The extragalactic nature of BL Lacertae was not a surprise. In 1972 a few variable optical and radio sources were grouped together and proposed as a new class of galaxy: BL Lacertae-type objects. This terminologywas soon shortened to “BL Lacertae object,” “BL Lac object,” or simply “BL Lac.” (Note that the latter term can also mean the original blazar and not the entire class.)

As of 2003, a few hundreds of BL Lac objects are known.

4 Current vision

Blazars are thought to be active galaxy nuclei, with relativistic jets oriented close to the line of sight with the observer.

The special jet orientation explains the general peculiar characteristics: high observed luminosity, very rapid variation, high polarization (when compared with non-blazar quasars), and the apparent superluminal motions detected along the first few parsecs of the jets in most blazars.

A Unified Scheme or Unified Model has become generally accepted where highly variable quasars are related to intrinsically powerful radio galaxies, and BL Lac objects are related to intrinsically weak radio galaxies. The distinction between these two connected populations explains the difference in emission line properties in Blazars.

Alternate explanations for the relativistic jet/unified scheme approach have been proposed include gravitational microlensing and coherent emission from the relativistic jet. Neither of these explain the overall properties of blazars. r example microlensing is achromatic, that is all parts of a spectrum will rise and fall together. This is very clearly not observed in blazars. However it is possible that these processes, as well as more complex plasma physics can account for specific observations or some details.

Blazars include 3C273, 3C273, BL Lacertae

Galaxies

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