TY - JOUR A1 - Gao, Shan A1 - Fedynitch, Anatoli A1 - Winter, Walter A1 - Pohl, Martin T1 - Modelling the coincident observation of a high-energy neutrino and a bright blazar flare JF - Nature Astronomy N2 - In September 2017, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory recorded a very-high-energy neutrino in directional coincidence with a blazar in an unusually bright gamma-ray state, TXS0506 + 056 (refs(1,2)). Blazars are prominent photon sources in the Universe because they harbour a relativistic jet whose radiation is strongly collimated and amplified. High-energy atomic nuclei known as cosmic rays can produce neutrinos; thus, the recent detection may help in identifying the sources of the diffuse neutrino flux(3) and the energetic cosmic rays. Here we report a self-consistent analysis of the physical relation between the observed neutrino and the blazar, in particular the time evolution and spectral behaviour of neutrino and photon emission. We demonstrate that a moderate enhancement in the number of cosmic rays during the flare can yield a very strong increase in the neutrino flux, which is limited by co-produced hard X-rays and teraelectronvolt gamma rays. We also test typical radiation models(4,5) for compatibility and identify several model classes(6,7) as incompatible with the observations. We investigate to what degree the findings can be generalized to the entire population of blazars, determine the relation between their output in photons, neutrinos and cosmic rays, and suggest how to optimize the strategy of future observations. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-018-0610-1 SN - 2397-3366 VL - 3 IS - 1 SP - 88 EP - 92 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gao, Shan A1 - Pohl, Martin A1 - Winter, Walter T1 - On the Direct Correlation between Gamma-Rays and PeV Neutrinos from Blazars JF - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics N2 - We study the frequently used assumption in multi-messenger astrophysics that the gamma-ray and neutrino fluxes are directly connected because they are assumed to be produced by the same photohadronic production chain. An interesting candidate source for this test is the flat-spectrum radio quasar PKS B1424-418, which recently called attention to a potential correlation between an IceCube PeV neutrino event and its burst phase. We simulate both the multi-waveband photon and the neutrino emission from this source using a self-consistent radiation model. We demonstrate that a simple hadronic model cannot adequately describe the spectral energy distribution for this source, but a lepto-hadronic model with a subdominant hadronic component can reproduce the multi-waveband photon spectrum observed during various activity phases of the blazar. As a conclusion, up to about 0.3 neutrino events may coincide with the burst, which implies that the leptonic contribution dominates in the relevant energy band. We also demonstrate that the time-wise correlation between the neutrino event and burst phase is weak. KW - galaxies: jets KW - gamma rays: general KW - neutrinos Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aa7754 SN - 0004-637X SN - 1538-4357 VL - 843 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 -