J/other/Nat/515.376 Power of relativistic jets in blazars (Ghisellini+, 2014)
The power of relativistic jets is larger than the luminosity of their
accretion disks.
Ghisellini G., Tavecchio F., Maraschi L., Celotti A., Sbarrato T.
<Nature, 515, 376-378 (2014)>
=2014Natur.515..376G 2014Natur.515..376G
ADC_Keywords: QSOs ; Active gal. nuclei ; Redshifts ; Gamma rays
Keywords: astronomy and planetary science
Abstract:
Theoretical models for the production of relativistic jets from active
galactic nuclei predict that jet power arises from the spin and mass
of the central supermassive black hole, as well as from the magnetic
field near the event horizon. The physical mechanism underlying the
contribution from the magnetic field is the torque exerted on the
rotating black hole by the field amplified by the accreting material.
If the squared magnetic field is proportional to the accretion rate,
then there will be a correlation between jet power and accretion
luminosity. There is evidence for such a correlation,
but inadequate knowledge of the accretion luminosity of the limited
and inhomogeneous samples used prevented a firm conclusion. Here we
report an analysis of archival observations of a sample of blazars
(quasars whose jets point towards Earth) that overcomes previous
limitations. We find a clear correlation between jet power, as
measured through the γ-ray luminosity, and accretion luminosity,
as measured by the broad emission lines, with the jet power dominating
the disk luminosity, in agreement with numerical simulations9. This
implies that the magnetic field threading the black hole horizon
reaches the maximum value sustainable by the accreting matter.
Description:
Our sample is composed of 229 blazars detected by Fermi/LAT for which
broad emission lines have been measured.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 76 217 Relevant parameters of the blazars in this study
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See also:
J/ApJ/715/429 : First Fermi-LAT AGN catalog (1LAC) (Abdo+, 2010)
J/ApJ/743/171 : The 2LAC catalog (Ackermann+, 2011)
J/ApJ/748/49 : Optical spectroscopy of 1LAC broad-line blazars (Shaw+, 2012)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 9 A9 --- Name Blazar name (HHMM+DDMM, J2000)
11- 15 F5.3 --- z [0.05/3.1] Blazar redshift
17- 21 F5.2 [10-7W] logPrad Logarithm of the radiation jet power (erg/s)
23- 27 F5.2 [10-7W] logPe Logarithm of the relativistic electron
jet power (erg/s)
29- 33 F5.2 [10-7W] logPB Logarithm of the magnetic field jet power
35- 39 F5.2 [10-7W] logPp Logarithm of the proton jet power
41- 44 F4.1 --- Gbulk [5/18] Bulk Lorentz factor Γ
46- 49 F4.1 deg Qv [2/10] Viewing angle
51- 55 F5.2 [10-7W] logLdf Logarithm of the disk luminosity as resulting
from disk fitting
57- 61 F5.2 [10-7W] logLdl Logarithm of the disk luminosity as measured
from the broad emission lines
63- 66 F4.2 [Msun] logMH ?=0 Logarithm of the black hole mass estimated
through the virial method using the Hβ
broad emission line (1)
68- 71 F4.2 [Msun] logMMg ?=0 Logarithm of the black hole mass estimated
through the virial method using the MgII
MgII broad emission line (1)
73- 76 F4.2 [Msun] logMC ?=0 Logarithm of the black hole mass estimated
through the virial method using the CIV
broad emission line (1)
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Note (1): virial method from Shaw et al. 2012 (J/ApJ/748/49).
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 06-Jan-2015