TEMPORAL CORRELATIONS BETWEEN OPTICAL AND GAMMA-RAY ACTIVITY IN BLAZARS

We have been using the 0.76 m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT) at Lick Observatory to optically monitor a sample of 157 blazars that are bright in gamma-rays being detected with high significance (10[sigma]) in one year by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telesco...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2014-12, Vol.797 (2), p.1-11
Main Authors: Cohen, Daniel P, Romani, Roger W, Filippenko, Alexei V, Cenko, S Bradley, Lott, Benoit, Zheng, Kang, Li, Weidong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
active galactic nuclei: blazars
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Astrophysics
Automation
Blazars
Correlation
Emission
galaxies: jets
Gamma rays
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Physics
quasars: general
Searching
Telescopes
Temporal logic
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Summary:We have been using the 0.76 m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT) at Lick Observatory to optically monitor a sample of 157 blazars that are bright in gamma-rays being detected with high significance (10[sigma]) in one year by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. We attempt to observe each source on a three-day cadence with KAIT, subject to weather and seasonal visibility. Using the discrete correlation function (DCF), here we search for temporal relationships between optical and gamma-ray light curves in the 40 brightest sources in hopes of placing constraints on blazar acceleration and emission zones. A stacked average DCF of the 40 sources verifies this correlation trend, with a peak above 99% significance indicating a characteristic time delay consistent with 0 days. The findings strongly support the widely accepted leptonic models of blazar emission. It is clear that long-term monitoring at high cadence is necessary to reveal the underlying physical correlation.
ISSN:1538-4357
0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/797/2/137