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We investigate how the total radio luminosity of AGN-powered radio sources depends on their accretion luminosity and the central black hole mass. Our studies cover about seven orders of magnitude in accretion luminosity (expressed in Eddington units, i.e. as Eddington ratios) and the full range of AGN black hole masses. We find that AGNs form two distinct and well separated sequences on the radio-loudness -Eddington-ratio plane. The 'upper' sequence is formed by radio selected AGNs, the 'lower' sequence contains mainly optically selected objects. Whereas an apparent 'gap' between the two sequences may be an artifact of selection effects, the sequences themselves mark the real upper bounds of radio-loudness of two distinct populations of AGNs: those hosted respectively by elliptical and disk galaxies. Both sequences show the same dependence of the radioloudness on the Eddington ratio (an increase with decreasing Eddington ratio), which suggests that the normalization of this dependence is determined by the black hole spin. This implies that central black holes in giant elliptical galaxies have (on average) much larger spins than black holes in spiral/disc galaxies. This galaxy-morphology related radio-dichotomy breaks down at high accretion rates where the dominant fraction of luminous quasars hosted by elliptical galaxies is radio quiet. This led to speculations in the literature that formation of powerful jets at high accretion rates is intermittent and related to switches between two disk accretion modes, as directly observed in some BH X-ray binaries. We argue that such intermittency can be reconciled with the spin paradigm, provided that successful formation of relativistic jets by rotating black holes requires collimation by MHD outflows from accretion disks.

Ground-based gamma-ray astronomy has had a major breakthrough with the impressive results obtained using systems of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. Ground-based gamma-ray astronomy has a huge potential in astrophysics, particle physics and cosmology. CTA is an international initiative to build the next generation instrument, with a factor of 5-10 improvement in sensitivity in the 100 GeV-10 TeV range and the extension to energies well below 100 GeV and above 100 TeV. CTA will consist of two arrays (one in the north, one in the south) for full sky coverage and will be operated as open observatory. The design of CTA is based on currently available technology. This document reports on the status and presents the major design concepts of CTA.

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a new observatory for very high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA has ambitions science goals, for which it is necessary to achieve full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude, to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with enhanced angular and energy resolutions over existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. An international collaboration has formed with more than 1000 members from 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. In 2010 the CTA Consortium completed a Design Study and started a three-year Preparatory Phase which leads to production readiness of CTA in 2014. In this paper we introduce the science goals and the concept of CTA, and provide an overview of the project. ?? 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Many luminous blazars which are associated with quasar-type active galactic nuclei display broadband spectra characterized by a large luminosity ratio of their high-energy (γ -ray) and low-energy (synchrotron) spectral components. This large ratio, reaching values up to 100, challenges the standard synchrotron self-Compton models by means of substantial departures from the minimum power condition. Luminous blazars also typically have very hard X-ray spectra, and those in turn seem to challenge hadronic scenarios for the high-energy blazar emission. As shown in this paper, no such problems are faced by the models which involve Comptonization of radiation provided by a broad-line region, or dusty molecular torus. The lack or weakness of bulk-Compton and KleinNishina features indicated by the presently available data favors the production of γ -rays via upscattering of infrared photons from hot dust. This implies that the blazar emission zone is located at parsec-scale distances from the nucleus, and as such is possibly associated with the extended, quasi-stationary reconfinement shocks formed in relativistic outflows. This scenario predicts characteristic timescales for flux changes in luminous blazars to be days/weeks, consistent with the variability patterns observed in such systems at infrared, optical, and γ -ray frequencies. We also propose that the parsec-scale blazar activity can be occasionally accompanied by dissipative events taking place at sub-parsec distances and powered by internal shocks and/or reconnection of magnetic fields. These could account for the multiwavelength intraday flares occasionally observed in powerful blazar sources.

A search for a very-high-energy (VHE; ≥100  GeV) γ-ray signal from self-annihilating particle dark matter (DM) is performed towards a region of projected distance r∼45-150  pc from the Galactic center. The background-subtracted γ-ray spectrum measured with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) γ-ray instrument in the energy range between 300 GeV and 30 TeV shows no hint of a residual γ-ray flux. Assuming conventional Navarro-Frenk-White and Einasto density profiles, limits are derived on the velocity-weighted annihilation cross section (σv) as a function of the DM particle mass. These are among the best reported so far for this energy range and in particular differ only little between the chosen density profile parametrizations. In particular, for the DM particle mass of ∼1  TeV, values for (σv) above 3×10(-25)  cm(3) s(-1) are excluded for the Einasto density profile.

We demonstrate the importance of near-infrared radiation from hot dust for Compton cooling of electrons/positrons in quasar jets. In our model, we assume that the nonthermal radiation spectra observed in optically violent variable (OVV) quasars are produced by relativistic electrons/positrons accelerated in thin shells that propagate down the jet with relativistic speeds. We show that the Comptonization of the near-IR Ñux is likely to dominate the radiative output of OVV quasars in the energy range from tens of keV up to hundreds of MeV, where it exceeds that produced by Comptonization of the UV radiation reprocessed and rescattered in the broad emission line (BEL) region. The main reason for this lies in the fact that the jet encounters the ambient IR radiation over a relatively large distance as compared to the distance where the energy density of the BEL light peaks. In the soft to mid-energy X-ray band, the spectral component resulting from Comptonization of the near-IR radiation joins smoothly with the synchrotron self-Compton component, which may be responsible for the soft X-ray Ñux. At the highest observed c-ray energies, in the GeV range, Comptonization of broad emission lines dominates over other components.

For the first time, detailed radiative transfer calculations of Comptonized X-ray and γ-ray radiation in a hot pair plasma above a cold accretion disk are performed using two independent codes and methods. The simulations include both energy and pair balance as well as reprocessing of the X-and γ-rays by the cold disk. We study both plane-parallel coronae as well as active dissipation regions having shapes of hemispheres and pill boxes located on the disk surface. It is shown, contrary to earlier claims, that plane-parallel coronae in pair balance have difficulties in selfconsistently reproducing the ranges of 2-20 keV spectral slopes, high energy cutoffs, and compactnesses inferred from observations of type 1 Seyfert galaxies. Instead, the observations are consistent with the X-rays coming from a number of individual active regions located on the surface of the disk.A number of effects such as anisotropic Compton scattering, the reflection hump, feedback to the soft photon source by reprocessing, and an active region in pair equilibrium all conspire to produce the observed ranges of X-ray slopes, high energy cutoffs, and compactnesses. The spread in spectral X-ray slopes can be due to a spread in the properties of the active regions such as their compactnesses and their elevations above the disk surface. Simplified models invoking isotropic Comptonization in spherical clouds are no longer sufficient when interpreting the data.