Abstract
The Fermi-LAT survey provides a large sample of blazars selected on the strength of their inverse Compton emission. We cross-correlate the first Fermi-LAT catalogue with the CRATES radio catalogue and use this sample to investigate whether blazar gamma-ray luminosities are influenced by the availability of external photons to be up-scattered. Using the 8.4 GHz flux densities of their compact radio cores as a proxy for their jet power, we calculate their Compton Efficiency parameters, which measure the ability of jets to convert power in the form of ultra-relativistic electrons into Compton gamma-rays. We find no clear differences in Compton efficiencies between BL Lac objects and FSRQs and no anti-correlation between Compton efficiency and synchrotron peak frequency. This suggests that the scattering of external photons is energetically unimportant compared to the synchrotron self-Compton process. These results contradict the predictions of the blazar sequence.
Connections
Explore this paper’s authors, topics and related work.
Building this map preview
BZPEER is loading the nearby papers, people, topics and institutions for this page.
Reviews 0
Write a review
No reviews yet.
Discussion 0
Add a comment
No comments yet.