A thirteen-year-long broadband view of BL Lac [HEAP]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2108.12232


We report optical, ultraviolet, X-ray and $\gamma$-ray observations of BL Lac objects prototype BL Lacertae carried out over a period of nearly 13 years, between 2008 and 2021. The source is characterized by strongly variable emission at all frequencies, often accompanied by spectral changes. In the $\gamma$-ray band several prominent flares have been detected, the largest one reaching the flux of $F_{\rm \gamma}(>196.7: {\rm MeV})=(4.39\pm1.01)\times10^{-6}:{\rm photon:cm^{-2}:s^{-1}}$, corresponding to the isotropic luminosity of $\simeq10^{47}:{\rm erg:s^{-1}}$. At the time of the first major X-ray flare, on MJD 56268.65, a traditional harder-when-brighter trend was observed. During the brightest flare, which occurred on MJD 59128.18, the source instead exhibited a softer-when-brighter trend due to a shift of the synchrotron peak to $10^{16}$ Hz, well into the HBL domain. The widely changing multi-wavelength emission of BL Lacertae was investigated by fitting one-zone and two-zone leptonic models to 520 high-quality and quasi-simultaneous broad-band spectral energy distributions. The HBL behaviour observed during the brightest X-ray flare is interpreted as due to the emergence of synchrotron emission from freshly accelerated particles in a second emission zone.

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N. Sahakyan and P. Giommi
Mon, 30 Aug 21
37/38

Comments: submitted to MNRAS