Detection of Compton Scattering in the Jet of 3C 84
Liodakis, Ioannis; Chakraborty, Sudip; Marin, Frédéric; Ehlert, Steven R.; Barnouin, Thibault; Kouch, Pouya M.; Nilsson, Kari; Lindfors, Elina; Pursimo, Tapio; Paraschos, Georgios F.; Middei, Riccardo; Trindade Falcão, Anna; Jorstad, Svetlana; Agudo, Iván; Kovalev, Yuri Y.; Casey, Jacob J.; Di Gesu, Laura; Kaaret, Philip; Kim, Dawoon E.; Kislat, Fabian; Ratheesh, Ajay; Saade, M. Lynne; Tombesi, Francesco; Marscher, Alan; Aceituno, Francisco José; Bonnoli, Giacomo; Casanova, Victor; Emery, Gabriel; Escudero Pedrosa, Juan; Morcuende, Daniel; Otero-Santos, Jorge; Sota, Alfredo; Piirola, Vilppu; Bachev, Rumen; Strigachev, Anton; Borman, George A.; Grishina, Tatiana S.; Hagen-Thorn, Vladimir A.; Kopatskaya, Evgenia N.; Larionova, Elena G.; Morozova, Daria A.; Savchenko, Sergey S.; Shishkina, Ekaterina V.; Troitskiy, Ivan S.; Troitskaya, Yulia V.; Vasilyev, Andrey A.; Zhovtan, Alexey V.; Myserlis, Ioannis; Gurwell, Mark; Keating, Garrett; Rao, Ramprasad; Kang, Sincheol; Lee, Sang-Sung; Kim, Sanghyun; Yeon Cheong, Whee; Jeong, Hyeon-Woo; Song, Chanwoo; Li, Shan; Nam, Myeong-Seok; Álvarez-Ortega, Diego; Casadio, Carolina; Angelakis, Emmanouil; Kraus, Alexander; Jormanainen, Jenni; Fallah Ramazani, Vandad; Chen, Chien-Ting; Costa, Enrico; Churazov, Eugene; Ferrazzoli, Riccardo; Galanti, Giorgio; Khabibullin, Ildar; O'dell, Stephen L.; Pacciani, Luigi; Roncadelli, Marco; Roberts, Oliver J.; Soffitta, Paolo; Swartz, Douglas A.; Tavecchio, Fabrizio; Weisskopf, Martin C.; Zhuravleva, Irina
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe202601215594
Tiivistelmä
3C 84 is the brightest cluster galaxy in the Perseus Cluster. It is among the closest radio-loud active galaxies and among the very few that can be detected from low-frequency radio up to TeV γ-rays. Here we report on the first X-ray polarization observation of 3C 84 with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, for a total of 2.2 Ms coinciding with a flare in γ-rays. This is the longest observation for a radio-loud active galaxy, which allowed us to reach unprecedented sensitivity, leading to the detection of an X-ray polarization degree of ΠX = 4.2% ± 1.3% (∼3.2σ confidence) at an X-ray electric vector polarization angle of ψX = 163° ± 9°, which is aligned with the radio jet direction on the sky. Optical polarization observations show fast variability about the jet axis as well. Our results strongly favor models in which X-rays are produced by Compton scattering from relativistic electrons—specifically synchrotron self-Compton—that takes place downstream, away from the supermassive black hole.
Kokoelmat
- Rinnakkaistallenteet [29335]