A connection between γ\gamma-ray and parsec-scale radio flares in the blazar 3C 273

We present a comprehensive 5-43 GHz VLBA study of the blazar 3C 273 initiated after an onset of a strong $\gamma$-ray flare in this source. We have analyzed the kinematics of new-born components, light curves, and position of the apparent core to pinpoint the location of the $\gamma$-ray emission. Estimated location of the $\gamma$-ray emission zone is close to the jet apex, 2 pc to 7 pc upstream from the observed 7 mm core. This is supported by ejection of a new component. The apparent core position was found to be inversely proportional to frequency. The brightness temperature in the 7 mm core reached values up to at least $10^{13}$ K during the flare. This supports the dominance of particle energy density over that of magnetic field in the 7 mm core. Particle density increased during the radio flare at the apparent jet base, affecting synchrotron opacity. This manifested itself as an apparent core shuttle along the jet during the 7 mm flare. It is also shown that a region where optical depth decreases from $\tau\sim1$ to $\tau<<1$ spans over several parsecs along the jet. The jet bulk flow speed estimated at the level of 12c on the basis of time lags between 7 mm light curves of stationary jet features is 1.5 times higher than that derived from VLBI apparent kinematics analysis.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 17 pages, 15 figures, 10 tables, with supplementary materials attache

Opacity, variability and kinematics of AGN jets

Synchrotron self-absorption in active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets manifests itself as a time delay between flares observed at high and low radio frequencies. It is also responsible for the observing frequency dependent change in size and position of the apparent base of the jet, aka the core shift effect, detected with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). We measure the time delays and the core shifts in 11 radio-loud AGN to estimate the speed of their jets without relying on multi-epoch VLBI kinematics analysis. The 15$-$8 GHz total flux density time lags are obtained using Gaussian process regression, the core shift values are measured using VLBI observations and adopted from the literature. A strong correlation is found between the apparent core shift and the observed time delay. Our estimate of the jet speed is higher than the apparent speed of the fastest VLBI components by the median coefficient of 1.4. The coefficient ranges for individual sources from 0.5 to 20. We derive Doppler factors, Lorentz factors and viewing angles of the jets, as well as the corresponding de-projected distance from the jet base to the core. The results support evidence for acceleration of the jets with bulk motion Lorentz factor $\Gamma\propto R^{0.52\pm0.03}$ on de-projected scales $R$ of 0.5$-$500 parsecs.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS; 11 pages, 11 figures, 3 table

New Associations of Gamma-Ray Sources from the Fermi Second Source Catalog

We present the results of an all-sky radio survey between 5 and 9 GHz of the fields surrounding all unassociated gamma-ray objects listed in the Fermi Large Area Telescope Second Source Catalog (2FGL). The goal of these observations is to find all new gamma-ray AGN associations with radio sources >10 mJy at 8 GHz. We observed with the Very Large Array and the Australia Telescope Compact Array the areas around unassociated sources, providing localizations of weak radio point sources found in 2FGL fields at arcmin scales. Then we followed-up a subset of those with the Very Long Baseline and the Long Baseline Arrays to confirm detections of radio emission on parsec-scales. We quantified association probabilities based on known statistics of source counts and assuming a uniform distribution of background sources. In total we found 865 radio sources at arcsec scales as candidates for association and detected 95 of 170 selected for follow-up observations at milliarcsecond resolution. Based on this we obtained firm associations for 76 previously unknown gamma-ray AGN. Comparison of these new AGN associations with the predictions from using the WISE color-color diagram shows that half of the associations are missed. We found that 129 out of 588 observed gamma-ray sources at arcmin scales not a single radio continuum source was detected above our sensitivity limit within the 3-sigma gamma-ray localization. These "empty" fields were found to be particularly concentrated at low Galactic latitudes. The nature of these Galactic gamma-ray emitters is not yet determined.Comment: accepted for publication by ApJS, 18 pages, 10 figures, 12 tables; full electronic versions of tables 2-8 are available as ancillary file

How Spatially Resolved Polarimetry Informs Black Hole Accretion Flow Models

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has successfully produced images of two supermassive black holes, enabling novel tests of black holes and their accretion flows on horizon scales. The EHT has so far published total intensity and linear polarization images, while upcoming images may include circular polarization, rotation measure, and spectral index, each of which reveals different aspects of the plasma and space-time. The next-generation EHT (ngEHT) will greatly enhance these studies through wider recorded bandwidths and additional stations, leading to greater signal-to-noise, orders of magnitude improvement in dynamic range, multi-frequency observations, and horizon-scale movies. In this paper, we review how each of these different observables informs us about the underlying properties of the plasma and the spacetime, and we discuss why polarimetric studies are well-suited to measurements with sparse, long-baseline coverage.Comment: Submitted for Galaxies Special Issue "From Vision to Instrument: Creating a Next-Generation Event Horizon Telescope for a New Era of Black Hole Science

The Relation between Radio Polarization and Gamma-ray Emission in AGN Jets

We have compared the parsec-scale jet linear polarization properties of the Fermi LAT-detected and non-detected sources in the complete flux-density-limited (MOJAVE-1) sample of highly beamed AGN. Of the 123 MOJAVE sources, 30 were detected by the LAT during its first three months of operation. We find that during the era since the launch of Fermi, the unresolved core components of the LAT-detected jets have significantly higher median fractional polarization at 15 GHz. This complements our previous findings that these LAT sources have higher apparent jet speeds, brightness temperatures and Doppler factors, and are preferentially found in higher activity states.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of "High Energy Phenomena In Relativistic Outflows II" (Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 26-30, 2009) International Journal of Modern Physics

Time variability of the core-shift effect in the blazar 3C 454.3

Using VLBI to measure a so-called core shift effect is a common way of obtaining estimates of the jet magnetic field strength. The VLBI core is typically identified as the bright feature at the jet's base, and the position of the core changes with the observed frequency, $r_\mathrm{core} \propto \nu^{-1/k_r}$. In this work, we investigated the time variability of the core-shift effect in the blazar 3C 454.3. We employed self-referencing analysis of multi-frequency (5, 8, 15, 22-24, and 43 GHz) VLBA data covering 19 epochs from 2005 until 2010. We found significant core shift variability ranging from 0.27 to 0.86 mas between 5 and 43 GHz, confirming the core-shift variability phenomenon observed before. Time variability of the core-shift index ($k_r$) was found typically below one, with an average value of $0.85 \pm 0.08$ and a standard deviation of $0.30$. $k_r<1$ values were found during flaring and quiescent states and our results indicate that commonly assumed conical jet shape and equipartition conditions do not always hold simultaneously. Still, these conditions are often assumed when deriving magnetic field strengths from core shift measurements, leading to unreliable results if $k_r$ significantly deviates from unity. Therefore, it is important to verify that $k_r = 1$ holds before using core shift values and the equipartition assumption to derive physical parameters in the jets. When $k_r = 1$ epochs are selected in the case of 3C 454.3, the magnetic field estimates are indeed quite consistent, even though the core shift varies with time. Additionally, our estimations of the jet's magnetic flux in 3C 454.3 show that the source is indeed in the magnetically arrested disk state. Finally, we found a good correlation of the core position with the core flux density, $r_\mathrm{core}\propto S_\mathrm{core}^{0.7}$, which is consistent with increased particle density during the flares.Comment: 53 pages, 6 tables, 57 figures. Article submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysic