TY  - JOUR
A1  - Nishikawa, Ken-Ichi
A1  - Frederiksen, J. T.
A1  - Nordlund, A.
A1  - Mizuno, Y.
A1  - Hardee, P. E.
A1  - Niemiec, J.
A1  - Gomez, J. L.
A1  - Dutan, I.
A1  - Meli, A.
A1  - Sol, H.
A1  - Pohl, Martin
A1  - Hartmann, D. H.
T1  - EVOLUTION OF GLOBAL RELATIVISTIC JETS: COLLIMATIONS AND EXPANSION WITH
kKHI AND THE WEIBEL INSTABILITY
JF  - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics
N2  - In the study of relativistic jets one of the key open questions is their interaction with the environment. Here. we study the initial evolution of both electron-proton (e(-) - p(+)) and electron-positron (e(+/-)) relativistic jets, focusing on their lateral interaction with ambient plasma. We follow the evolution of toroidal magnetic fields generated by both the kinetic Kelvin-Helmholtz and Mushroom instabilities. For an e(-) - p(+) jet, the induced magnetic field collimates the jet and electrons are perpendicularly accelerated. As the instabilities saturate and subsequently weaken, the magnetic polarity switches from clockwise to counterclockwise in the middle of the jet. For an e(+/-) jet, we find strong mixing of electrons and positrons with the ambient plasma, resulting in the creation of a bow shock. The merging of current filaments generates density inhomogeneities that. initiate a forward shock. Strong jet-ambient plasma mixing prevents a full development of the jet (on the scale studied), revealing evidence for both jet collimation and particle acceleration in the forming bow shock. Differences in the magnetic field structure generated by e(-) - p(+) and e(+/-) jets may contribute to the polarization properties of the observed emission in AGN jets and gamma-ray bursts.
KW  - acceleration of particles
KW  - plasmas
KW  - radiation mechanisms: non-thermal
KW  - relativistic processes
KW  - stars: jets
KW  - Sun: magnetic fields
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/820/2/94
SN  - 0004-637X
SN  - 1538-4357
VL  - 820
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Chen, Xuhui
A1  - Pohl, Martin
A1  - Bottcher, Markus
A1  - Gao, Shan
T1  - Particle diffusion and localized acceleration in inhomogeneous AGN jets - II. Stochastic variation
JF  - Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
N2  - We study the stochastic variation of blazar emission under a 2D spatially resolved leptonic jet model we previously developed. Random events of particle acceleration and injection in small zones within the emission region are assumed to be responsible for flux variations. In addition to producing spectral energy distributions that describe the observed flux of Mrk 421, we further analyse the timing properties of the simulated light curves, such as the power spectral density (PSD) at different bands, flux-flux correlations, aswell as the cross-correlation function between X-rays and TeV gamma-rays. We find spectral breaks in the PSD at a time-scale comparable to the dominant characteristic time-scale in the system, which is usually the predefined decay time-scale of an acceleration event. Cooling imposes a delay, and so PSDs taken at lower energy bands in each emission component (synchrotron or inverse Compton) generally break at longer time-scales. The flux-flux correlation between X-rays and TeV gamma-rays can be either quadratic or linear, depending on whether or not there are large variation of the injection into the particle acceleration process. When the relationship is quadratic, the TeV flares lag the X-ray flares, and the optical and GeV flares are large enough to be comparable to the ones in X-ray. When the relationship is linear, the lags are insignificant, and the optical and GeV flares are small.
KW  - acceleration of particles
KW  - diffusion
KW  - radiation mechanisms: non-thermal
KW  - galaxies: active
KW  - BL Lacertae objects: individual: Mrk 421
KW  - galaxies: jets
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw528
SN  - 0035-8711
SN  - 1365-2966
VL  - 458
SP  - 3260
EP  - 3271
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Archambault, S.
A1  - Archer, A.
A1  - Benbow, W.
A1  - Bird, R.
A1  - Biteau, Jonathan
A1  - Buchovecky, M.
A1  - Buckley, J. H.
A1  - Bugaev, V.
A1  - Byrum, K.
A1  - Cerruti, M.
A1  - Chen, Xuhui
A1  - Ciupik, L.
A1  - Connolly, M. P.
A1  - Cui, W.
A1  - Eisch, J. D.
A1  - Errando, M.
A1  - Falcone, A.
A1  - Feng, Q.
A1  - Finley, J. P.
A1  - Fleischhack, H.
A1  - Fortin, P.
A1  - Fortson, L.
A1  - Furniss, A.
A1  - Gillanders, G. H.
A1  - Griffin, S.
A1  - Grube, J.
A1  - Gyuk, G.
A1  - Huetten, M.
A1  - Hakansson, Nils
A1  - Hanna, D.
A1  - Holder, J.
A1  - Humensky, T. B.
A1  - Johnson, C. A.
A1  - Kaaret, P.
A1  - Kar, P.
A1  - Kelley-Hoskins, N.
A1  - Kertzman, M.
A1  - Kieda, D.
A1  - Krause, M.
A1  - Krennrich, F.
A1  - Kumar, S.
A1  - Lang, M. J.
A1  - Maier, G.
A1  - McArthur, S.
A1  - McCann, A.
A1  - Meagher, K.
A1  - Moriarty, P.
A1  - Mukherjee, R.
A1  - Nguyen, T.
A1  - Nieto, D.
A1  - Ong, R. A.
A1  - Otte, A. N.
A1  - Park, N.
A1  - Perkins, J. S.
A1  - Pichel, A.
A1  - Pohl, Martin
A1  - Popkow, A.
A1  - Pueschel, Elisa
A1  - Quinn, J.
A1  - Ragan, K.
A1  - Reynolds, P. T.
A1  - Richards, G. T.
A1  - Roache, E.
A1  - Rovero, A. C.
A1  - Santander, M.
A1  - Sembroski, G. H.
A1  - Shahinyan, K.
A1  - Smith, A. W.
A1  - Staszak, D.
A1  - Telezhinsky, Igor O.
A1  - Tucci, J. V.
A1  - Tyler, J.
A1  - Vincent, S.
A1  - Wakely, S. P.
A1  - Weiner, O. M.
A1  - Weinstein, A.
A1  - Williams, D. A.
A1  - Zitzer, B.
A1  - Fumagalli, M.
A1  - Prochaska, J. X.
T1  - UPPER LIMITS FROM FIVE YEARS OF BLAZAR OBSERVATIONS WITH THE VERITAS CHERENKOV TELESCOPES
JF  - The astronomical journal
N2  - Between the beginning of its full-scale scientific operations in 2007 and 2012, the VERITAS Cherenkov telescope array observed more than 130 blazars; of these, 26 were detected as very-high-energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray sources. In this work, we present the analysis results of a sample of 114 undetected objects. The observations constitute a total live-time of similar to 570 hr. The sample includes several unidentified Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) sources (located at high Galactic latitude) as well as all the sources from the second Fermi-LAT catalog that are contained within the field of view of the VERITAS observations. We have also performed optical spectroscopy measurements in order to estimate the redshift of some of these blazars that do not have spectroscopic distance estimates. We present new optical spectra from the Kast instrument on the Shane telescope at the Lick observatory for 18 blazars included in this work, which allowed for the successful measurement or constraint on the redshift of four of them. For each of the blazars included in our sample, we provide the flux upper limit in the VERITAS energy band. We also study the properties of the significance distributions and we present the result of a stacked analysis of the data set, which shows a 4s excess.
KW  - BL Lacertae objects: general
KW  - galaxies: active
KW  - gamma rays: galaxies
KW  - radiation mechanisms: non-thermal
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-6256/151/6/142
SN  - 0004-6256
SN  - 1538-3881
VL  - 151
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  -