ABSTRACT Using blazar light curves from the optical All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) and the γ-ray Fermi-LAT telescope, we performed the most extensive statistical correlation study between both bands, using a sample of 1180 blazars. This is almost an order of magnitude larger than other recent studies. Blazars represent more than 98 per cent of the AGNs detected by Fermi-LAT and are the brightest γ-ray sources in the extragalactic sky. They are essential for studying the physical properties of astrophysical jets from central black holes. However, their γ-ray flare mechanism is not fully understood. Multiwavelength correlations help constrain the dominant mechanisms of blazar variability. We search for temporal relationships between optical and γ-ray bands. Using a Bayesian Block Decomposition, we detect 1414 optical and 510 γ-ray flares, we find a strong correlation between both bands. Among all the flares, we find 321 correlated flares from 133 blazars, and derive an average rest-frame time delay of only 1.1$$_{-8.5}^{+7.1}$$ d, with no difference between the flat-spectrum radio quasars, BL Lacertae-like objects or low, intermediate, and high-synchrotron peaked blazar classes. Our time-delay limit rules out the hadronic proton-synchrotron model as the driver for non-orphan flares and suggests a leptonic single-zone model. Limiting our search to well-defined light curves and removing 976 potential but unclear ‘orphan’ flares, we find 191 (13 per cent) and 115 (22 per cent) clear ‘orphan’ optical and γ-ray flares. The presence of ‘orphan’ flares in both bands challenges the standard one-zone blazar flare leptonic model and suggests multizone synchrotron sites or a hadronic model for some blazars.
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New Identifications and Multiwavelength Properties of Extragalactic Fermi Gamma-Ray Sources in the SPT-SZ Survey Field
Abstract The fourth Fermi Large Area Telescope catalog (4FGL) contains 5064 γ -ray sources detected at high significance, but 26% of them still lack associations at other wavelengths. The SPT-SZ survey, conducted between 2008 and 2011 with the South Pole Telescope (SPT), covers 2500 deg 2 of the southern sky in three millimeter-wavelength (mm) bands and was used to construct a catalog of nearly 5000 emissive sources. In this study, we introduce a new cross-matching scheme to search for multiwavelength counterparts of extragalactic γ -ray sources using a mm catalog. We apply a Poissonian probability to evaluate the rate of spurious false associations and compare the multiwavelength associations from the radio, mm, near-infrared, and X-ray with 4FGL γ -ray sources. In the SPT-SZ survey field, 85% of 4FGL sources are associated with mm counterparts. These mm sources include 94% of previously associated 4FGL sources and 56% of previously unassociated 4FGL sources. The latter group contains 40 4FGL sources for which SPT has provided the first identified counterparts. Nearly all of the SPT-associated 4FGL sources can be described as flat-spectrum radio quasars or blazars. We find that the mm band is the most efficient wavelength for detecting γ -ray blazars when considering both completeness and purity. We also demonstrate that the mm band correlates better to the γ -ray band than the radio or X-ray bands. With the next generation of CMB experiments, this technique can be extended to greater sensitivities and more sky area to further complete the identifications of the remaining unknown γ -ray blazars.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1852617
- PAR ID:
- 10408818
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Volume:
- 939
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0004-637X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 117
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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