1998/07/30 by G. Ghisellini, A. Celotti, G. Fossati +2 · 27 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.1998.02032.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.301:451,1998 · 25 pages, 11 figures, uses mn.sty and psfig.tex. Accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 1998/07/30 · openalex publication_date 1998/12/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The phenomenology of γ-ray bright blazars can be accounted for by a sequence in the source power and intensity of the diffuse radiation field surrounding the relativistic jet. Correspondingly, the equilibrium particle distribution peaks at different energies. This leads to a trend in the observed properties: an increase of the observed power corresponds to: (i) a decrease in the frequencies of the synchrotron and inverse Compton peaks, and (ii) an increase in the ratio of the powers of the high- and low-energy spectral components. Objects along this sequence would be observationally classified respectively as high-frequency BL Lac objects, low-frequency BL Lac objects, high-polarization quasars and low-polarization quasars. The proposed scheme is based on the correlations among the physical parameters derived in the present paper by applying to 51 γ-ray loud blazars two of the most accepted scenarios for the broad-band emission of blazars, namely the synchrotron self-Compton and external Compton models. This also explains the observational trends presented by Fossati et al., dealing with the spectral energy distributions of all blazars. This gives us confidence that our scheme applies to all blazars as a class.