On the Multiwavelength Emission from CTA 102

Abstract

Abstract We report on broadband observations of CTA 102 (z = 1.037) during the active states in 2016–2017. In the γ-ray band, Fermi-LAT observed several prominent flares that followed a harder-when-brighter behavior: the hardest photon index Γ = 1.61 ± 0.10 being unusual for flat-spectrum radio quasars. The peak γ-ray flux above 100 MeV, observed on MJD 57,738.47 within 4.31 minutes, corresponds to an isotropic γ-ray luminosity of , comparable to the highest values observed from blazars so far. The analyses of the Swift UVOT/XRT data show an increase in the UV/optical and X-ray bands that is contemporaneous with the bright γ-ray periods. The X-ray spectrum observed by Swift XRT and NuSTAR during the γ-ray flaring period is characterized by a hard photon index of ∼1.30. The shortest e-folding time was 4.08 ± 1.44 hr, suggesting a very compact emission region cm. We modeled the spectral energy distribution of CTA 102 in several periods (having different properties in UV/optical, X-ray, and γ-ray bands) assuming a compact blob inside and outside the BLR. We found that the high-energy data are better described when the infrared thermal radiation of the dusty torus is considered. In the flaring periods when the correlation between the γ-ray and UV/optical/X-ray bands is lacking, the γ-ray emission can be produced from the interaction of fresh electrons in a different blob, which does not make a dominant contribution at lower energies.