In this paper, we present light curves for 3C 279 over a time period of six years; from 2008 to 2014. Our multiwavelength data comprise 1 mm to gamma-rays, with additional optical polarimetry. Based on the behaviour of the gamma-ray light curve with respect to other bands, we identified three different activity periods. One of the activity periods shows anomalous behaviour with no gamma-ray counterpart associated with optical and NIR flares. Another anomalous activity period shows a flare in gamma-rays, 1 mm and polarization degree, however, it does not have counterparts in the UV continuum, optical and NIR bands. We find a significant overall correlation of the UV continuum emission, the optical and NIR bands. This correlation suggests that the NIR to UV continuum is co-spatial. We also find a correlation between the UV continuum and the 1 mm data, which implies that the dominant process in producing the UV continuum is synchrotron emission. The gamma-ray spectral index shows statistically significant variability and an anti-correlation with the gamma-ray luminosity. We demonstrate that the dominant gamma-ray emission mechanism in 3C 279 changes over time. Alternatively, the location of the gamma-ray emission zone itself may change depending on the activity state of the central engine.

Abstract We present multiwavelength light curves and polarimetric data of the Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar 3C 273 over 8 years. The wavelength range of our data set extends from radio to gamma-rays. We found that the optical emission in this source is dominated by the accretion disk during the entire time-frame of study. We additionally find that in contrast with the observed behaviour in other blazars, 3C 273 does not show a correlation between the gamma-ray spectral index and the gamma-ray luminosity. Finally, we identified an anti-correlation between the 15 GHz and V-band light curves for the time-range JD245 = 4860 − 5760, which we speculate is the consequence of the inner part of the accretion disk falling into the black hole, followed by the ejection of a component into the jet.

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We present a multifrequency analysis of the variability in the flat-spectrum radio quasar 3C 279 from 2008 to 2014. Our multiwavelength dataset includes gamma-ray data from Fermi/LAT (Abdo et al. 2009), observations in 1mm from SMA (Gurwell et al. 2007), Near Infrared from OAGH (Carramiñana & Carrasco 2009) and SMARTS (Bonning et al. 2012); optical V band from the Steward Observatory (Smith et al. 2009) and SMARTS; optical spectra from OAGH (Patiño-Álvarez et al. 2013) and the Steward Observatory; and polarization spectra from the Steward Observatory. The light curves are shown in Fig. 1. Six out of seven optical activity periods identified within our dataset show clear counterparts in mm, NIR and gammarays, however, the late 2011 -early 2012 optical flare does not have a counterpart in the GeV regime. In this contribution, we discuss the flaring evolution of 3C 279 and speculate about the production of the anomalous activity period.