Locating the gamma-ray emission site in Fermi/LAT blazars from correlation analysis between 37 GHz radio and gamma-ray light curves




Ramakrishnan V, Hovatta T, Nieppola E, Tornikoski M, Lähteenmäki A, Valtaoja E

PublisherOxford University Press

2015

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

MON NOT R ASTRON SOC

452

2

1280

1294

15

0035-8711

1365-2966

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv321



We address the highly debated issue of constraining the gamma-ray emission region in blazars from cross-correlation analysis using discrete correlation function between radio and gamma-ray light curves. The significance of the correlations is evaluated using two different approaches: simulating light curves and mixed source correlations. The cross-correlation analysis yielded 26 sources with significant correlations. In most of the sources, the gamma-ray peaks lead the radio with time lags in the range +20 and +690 d, whereas in sources 1633+382 and 3C 345 we find the radio emission to lead the gamma-rays by -15 and -40 d, respectively. Apart from the individual source study, we stacked the correlations of all sources and also those based on subsamples. The time lag from the stacked correlation is +80 d for the whole sample and the distance travelled by the emission region corresponds to 7 pc. We also compared the start times of activity in radio and gamma-rays of the correlated flares using Bayesian block representation. This shows that most of the flares at both wavebands start at almost the same time, implying a co-spatial origin of the activity. The correlated sources show more flares and are brighter in both bands than the uncorrelated ones.




Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 12:48