Extremely High energy peaked BL Lac (EHBL) objects are a special class of blazars with peculiar observational properties at X-ray and γ-ray energies. The observations of these sources indicate hard X-ray and γ-ray spectra and absence of rapid flux variations in the multi-wavelength light curves. These observational features challenge the leptonic models for blazars due to unusually hard particle spectrum in the emission region of the blazar jet and provide a strong motivation for exploring alternative scenarios to interpret the broad-band emission from blazars. At present, only few TeV blazars have been observed as EHBL objects in the extragalactic Universe. Due to their hard γ-ray spectra and long term variability, the observations of EHBL type of blazars at different redshifts help in probing the cosmic magnetic field and extragalactic background light in the Universe. Such objects also provide astrophysical sites to explore the particle acceleration mechanisms like magnetic reconnection and second order Fermi acceleration. Therefore, it has become important to identify more objects as EHBL using the observations available in the literature. Recent studies on the blazar Mrk 501 indicate that this source may exhibit an EHBL behaviour. In this paper, we use long term observations of Mrk 501 to explore its nature. Two sets of data, related to low and high/flaring activity states of Mrk 501, have been presented and compared with the observed features of a few well known EHBL type of blazars.We find that the spectral features of the blazar Mrk 501 indicate an EHBL nature of the source. Whereas, the temporal characteristics with fast variability during the high activity state of the source in X-ray and γ-ray energy bands are not compatible with the behaviour of EHBL type of blazars. However, Mrk 501 can be considered as an EHBL candidate in its low emission state. We also discuss the implications of identifying more EHBL objects using present and future groundbased γ-ray observatories.
In this work, we present a multi-wavelength study of the blazar 1ES 1218+304 using near simultaneous observations over 10 years during the period September 1, 2008 to August 31, 2018 (MJD 54710-58361). We have analyzed data from Swift -UVOT, Swift -XRT and Fermi-LAT to study the long term behaviour of 1ES 1218+304 in different energy bands over the last decade. We have also used the archival data from OVRO, MAXI and Swift -BAT available during the above period. The near simultaneous data on 1ES 1218+304 suggest that the long term multi-wavelength emission from the source is steady and does not show any significant change in the source activity. The optical/UV fluxes are found to be dominated by the host galaxy emission and can be modelled using the PEGASE code. However, the time averaged X-ray and γray emisions from the source are reproduced using a single zone leptonic model with log-parabolic distribution for the radiating particles. The intrinsic very high energy γ-ray emission during a low activity state of the source is broadly consistent with the predictions of the leptonic model for blazars. We have investigated the physical properties of the jet and the mass of the super massive black hole at the center of the host galaxy using long term X-ray observations from the Swift -XRT which is in agreement with the value derived using blackbody approximation of the host galaxy. We also discuss the extreme nature of the source on the basis of X-ray and γ-ray observations.
Blazars are observed to emit non-thermal radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum from the radio to the very-high-energy γ-ray region. The broadband radiation measured from a blazar is dominated by emission from a relativistic plasma jet which is assumed to be powered by a spinning supermassive black hole situated in the central region of the host galaxy. The formation of jets, their mode of energy transport, actual power budget, and connection with the central black hole are among the most fundamental open problems in blazar research. However, the observed broadband spectral energy distribution from blazars is generally explained by a simple one-zone leptonic emission model. The model parameters place constraints on the contributions from the magnetic field, radiation field, and kinetic power of particles to the emission region in the jet. This in turn constrains the minimum power transported by the jet from the central engine. In this work, we explore the potential of machine learning frameworks including linear regression, support vector machine, adaptive boosting, bagging, gradient boosting, and random forests for the estimation of the mass of the supermassive black hole at the center of the host galaxy of blazars using the best-fit emission model parameters derived from the broadband spectral energy distribution modeling in the literature. Our study suggests that the support vector machine, adaptive boosting, bagging, and random forest algorithms can predict black hole masses with reasonably good accuracy.
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