We present a multi-wavelength study of the radio-loud narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxy (NLSy1), 1H 0323+342, detected by Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope. Multi-band light curves show many orphan X-ray and optical flares having no corresponding γ-ray counterparts. Such anomalous variability behavior can be due to different locations of the emission region from the central source. During a large flare, γ-ray flux doubling time scale as small as ∼ 3 hours is noticed. We built spectral energy distribution (SED) during different activity states and modeled them using an one-zone leptonic model. The shape of the optical/UV component of the SEDs is dominated by accretion disk emission in all the activity states. In the X-ray band, significant thermal emission from the hot corona is inferred during quiescent and first flaring states, however, during subsequent flares, non-thermal jet component dominates. The γ-ray emission in all the states can be well explained by inverse-Compton scattering of accretion disk photons reprocessed by the broad line region. The source showed violent intra-night optical variability, coinciding with one of the high γ-ray activity states. An analysis of the overall X-ray spectrum fitted with an absorbed power-law plus relativistic reflection component hints for the presence of Fe K-α line and returns a high black hole spin value of a=0.96 ± 0.14. We argue that 1H 0323+342 possesses dual characteristics, akin to flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) as well as radio-quiet NLSy1s, though at a low jet power regime compared to powerful FSRQs.

The well-studied blazar 3C 279 underwent a giant γ-ray outburst in 2014 March-April. The measured γ-ray flux (1.21 ± 0.10 × 10 −5 --ph cm s 2 1 in a 0.1-300 GeV energy range) is the highest detected from 3C 279 by theFermi Large Area Telescope. Hour-scale γ-ray flux variability is observed, with a flux doubling time as short as 1.19 ± 0.36 hr detected during one flare. The γ-ray spectrum is found to be curved at the peak of the flare, suggesting low probability of detecting very high energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) emission, which is further confirmed by the VERITAS observations. The γ-ray flux increased by more than an order in comparison to a low-activity state and the flare consists of multiple sub-structures having a fast rise and slow decay profile. The flux enhancement is seen in all the wavebands, though at a lesser extent compared to γ-rays. During the flare, a considerable amount of the kinetic jet power gets converted to γ-rays and the jet becomes radiatively efficient. A one-zone leptonic emission model is used to reproduce the flare and we find increase in the bulk Lorentz factor as a major cause of the outburst. From the observed fast variability, lack of VHE detection, and the curved γ-ray spectrum, we conclude that the location of the emission region cannot be far out from the broadline region (BLR) and contributions from both BLR and torus photons are required to explain the observed γ-ray spectrum.

The broadband spectrum of a BL Lac object, OJ 287, from radio to γ-rays obtained during a major γ-ray flare detected by Fermi in 2009 are studied to understand the high energy emission mechanism during this episode. Using a simple one-zone leptonic model, incorporating synchrotron and inverse Compton emission processes, we show that the explanation of high energy emission from X-rays to γ-rays, by considering a single emission mechanism, namely, synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) or external Compton (EC) requires unlikely physical conditions. However, a combination of both SSC and EC mechanisms can reproduce the observed high energy spectrum satisfactorily. Using these emission mechanisms we extract the physical parameters governing the source and its environment. Our study suggests that the emission region of OJ 287 is surrounded by a warm infrared (IR) emitting region of ∼ 250 K. Assuming this region as a spherical cloud illuminated by an accretion disk, we obtain the location of the emission region to be ∼ 9 pc. This supports the claim that the γ-ray emission from OJ 287 during the 2009 flare arises from a location far away from the central engine as deduced from millimeter-gamma ray correlation study and very long baseline array images.

We present the results of a multi-frequency, time-averaged analysis of blazars included in the Candidate Gamma-ray Blazar Survey catalog. Our sample consists of 324 γ-ray detected (γ-ray loud) and 191 non γ-ray detected (γ-ray quiet) blazars, and we consider all the data up to 2016 April 1. We find that both the γ-ray loud and the γ-ray quiet blazar populations occupy similar regions in the WISE color-color diagram, and in the radio and X-ray bands γ-ray loud sources are brighter. A simple one-zone synchrotron inverse-Compton emission model is applied to derive the physical properties of both populations. We find that the central black hole mass and the accretion disk luminosity (L disk ) computed from the modeling of the optical-UV emission with a Shakura-Sunyaev disk reasonably matches with that estimated from the optical spectroscopic emission-line information. A significantly larger Doppler boosting in the γ-ray loud blazars is noted, and their jets are more radiatively efficient. On the other hand, the γ-ray quiet objects are more MeV-peaked, thus could be potential targets for next-generation MeV missions. Our results confirm the earlier findings about the accretion-jet connection in blazars; however, many of the γ-ray quiet blazars tend to deviate from the recent claim that the jet power exceeds L disk in blazars. A broadband study, considering a larger set of γ-ray quiet objects and also including BL Lacs, will be needed to confirm/reject this hypothesis and also to verify the evolution of the powerful high-redshift blazars into their low-power nearby counterparts.

The well studied blazar Markarian 421 (Mrk 421, z=0.031) was the subject of an intensive multi-wavelength campaign when it flared in 2013 April. The recorded X-ray and very high energy (VHE, E>100 GeV) γ-ray fluxes are the highest ever measured from this object. At the peak of the activity, it was monitored by the hard X-ray focusing telescope Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and Swift X-Ray Telescope (XRT). In this work, we present a detailed variability analysis of NuSTAR and Swift-XRT observations of Mrk 421 during this flaring episode. We obtained the shortest flux doubling time of 14.01±5.03 minutes, which is the shortest hard X-ray (3−79 keV) variability ever recorded from Mrk 421 and is on the order of the light crossing time of the black hole's event horizon. A pattern of extremely fast variability events superposed on slowly varying flares is found in most of the NuSTAR observations. We suggest that these peculiar variability patterns may be explained by magnetic energy dissipation and reconnection in a fast moving compact emission region within the jet.Based on the fast variability, we derive a lower limit on the magnetic field strength of B ≥ 0.73δ

Variable γ-ray emission has been discovered in five Radio-loud Narrow Line Seyfert 1 (NLSy1) galaxies by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. This has clearly demonstrated that these NLSy1 galaxies do have relativistic jets similar to two other cases of γ-ray emitting Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), namely blazars and radio galaxies. We present here our results on the multi-band analysis of two γ-ray emitting NLSy1 galaxies namely PKS 1502+036 (z = 0.409) and PKS 2004−447 (z = 0.240) using archival data. We generate multi-band long term light curves of these sources, build their spectral energy distribution (SED) and model them using an one zone leptonic model. They resemble more to the SEDs of the flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) class of AGN. We then compare the SEDs of these two sources with two other Fermi detected AGN along the traditional blazar sequence, namely the BL Lac Mrk 421 (z = 0.03) and the FSRQ 3C 454.3 (z = 0.86). The SEDs of both PKS 1502+036 and PKS 2004−447 are found to be intermediate to the SEDs of Mrk 421 and 3C 454.3. In the γ-ray spectral index v/s γ-ray luminosity plane, both these NLSy1 galaxies occupy a distinct position, wherein, they have luminosity between Mrk 421 and 3C 454.3, however steep γ-ray spectra similar to 3C 454.3. Their Compton dominance as well as their X-ray spectral slope also lie between Mrk 421 and 3C 454.3. We argue that the physical properties of both PKS 1502+036 and PKS 2004−447 are in general similar to blazars and intermediate between FSRQs and BL Lac objects and these sources thus could fit into the traditional blazar sequence.

We present the results of the γ-ray flux distribution study on the brightest blazars which are observed by the Fermi-LAT. We selected 50 brightest blazars based on the maximum number of detection reported in the LAT third AGN catalog. We performed standard unbinned maximum likelihood analysis on the LAT data during the period between August 2008 and December 2016, in order to obtain the average monthly flux. After quality cuts, blazars for which at least 90% of the total flux was survived were selected for the further study, and this includes 19 FSRQs and 19 BL Lacs. The Anderson-Darling and χ 2 tests suggest that the integrated monthly flux follow a log-normal distribution for all sources, except for three FSRQs for which neither a normal nor a log-normal distribution was preferred. A double log-normal flux distribution tendency were observed in these sources, though it has to be confirmed with improved statistics. We also found that, the standard deviation of the lognormal flux distribution increases with the mean spectral index of the blazar, and can be fitted with a line of slope 0.24 ± 0.04. We repeat our study on three additional brightest unclassified blazars to identify their flux distribution properties. Based on the features of their log-normal flux distribution, we infer these unclassified blazars may be closely associated with FSRQs.We also highlight that considering the log-normal behavior of the flux distribution of blazars, averaging their long term flux in linear scale can largely under estimate the nominal flux and this discrepancy can propagate down to the estimation of source parameters through spectral modeling.

We present a systematic characterization of multi-wavelength emission from blazar PKS 1510-089 using wellsampled data at near-infrared (NIR), optical, X-ray, and γ-ray energies. The resulting flux distributions, except at X-rays, show two distinct lognormal profiles corresponding to a high and a low flux level. The dispersions exhibit energy-dependent behavior except in the LAT γ-ray and optical B-band. During the low level flux states, it is higher toward the peak of the spectral energy distribution, with γ-ray being intrinsically more variable followed by IR and then optical, consistent with mainly being a result of varying bulk Lorentz factor. On the other hand, the dispersions during the high state are similar in all bands except the optical B-band, where thermal emission still dominates. The centers of distributions are a factor of ∼4 apart, consistent with anticipation from studies of extragalactic γ-ray background with the high state showing a relatively harder mean spectral index compared to the low state.