A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Testing particle acceleration in blazar jets with continuous high-cadence optical polarization observations
Authors: Liodakis, Ioannis; Kiehlmann, Sebastian; Marscher, Alan P.; Zhang, Haocheng; Blinov, Dmitry; Jorstad, Svetlana G.; Agudo, Iván; Benítez, Erika; Berdyugin, Andrei; Bonnoli, Giacomo; Casadio, Carolina; Chen, Chien-Ting; Chen, Wen-Ping; Ehlert, Steven R.; Escudero, Juan; Grishina, Tatiana S.; Hiriart, David; Hsu, Angela; Imazawa, Ryo; Jermak, Helen E.; Jose, Jincen; Kaaret, Philip; Kopatskaya, Evgenia N.; Lalchand, Bhavana; Larionova, Elena G.; Lindfors, Elina; López, José M.; McCall, Callum; Morozova, Daria A.; Palaiologou, Efthymios; Pandey, Shivangi; Poutanen, Juri; Rakshit, Suvendu; Reig, Pablo; Sasada, Mahito; Savchenko, Sergey S.; Shablovinskaya, Elena; Sharma, Neha; Shrestha, Manisha; Steele, Iain A.; Troitskiy, Ivan S.; Troitskaya, Yulia V.; Uemura, Makoto; Vasilyev, Andrey A.; Weaver, Zachary; Wiersema, Klaas; Weisskopf, Martin C.
Publisher: EDP Sciences
Publication year: 2024
Journal: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Journal name in source: Astronomy & Astrophysics
Volume: 689
First page : A200
ISSN: 0004-6361
eISSN: 1432-0746
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451037
Web address : http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451037
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/458211332
Variability can be the pathway to understanding the physical processes in astrophysical jets. However, the high-cadence observations required to test particle acceleration models are still missing. Here we report on the first attempt to produce continuous, > 24 hour polarization light curves of blazars using telescopes distributed across the globe, following the rotation of the Earth, to avoid the rising Sun. Our campaign involved 16 telescopes in Asia, Europe, and North America. We observed BL Lacertae and CGRaBS J0211+1051 for a combined 685 telescope hours. We find large variations in the polarization degree and angle for both sources on sub-hour timescales as well as a ∼180° rotation of the polarization angle in CGRaBS J0211+1051 in less than two days. We compared our high-cadence observations to particle-in-cell magnetic reconnection and turbulent plasma simulations. We find that although the state-of-the-art simulation frameworks can produce a large fraction of the polarization properties, they do not account for the entirety of the observed polarization behavior in blazar jets.
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