Log-parabola Models Research Articles

The Hard X-Ray Emission of the Blazar PKS 2155–304

Abstract The synchrotron peak of the X-ray bright High Energy Peaked Blazar PKS 2155–304 occurs in the UV-EUV region and hence its X-ray emission (0.6–10 keV) lies mostly in the falling part of the synchrotron hump. We aim to study the X-ray emission of PKS 2155–304 during different intensity states in 2009–2014 using the XMM-Newton satellite. We studied the spectral curvature of all of the observations to provide crucial information on the energy distribution of the nonthermal particles. Most of the observations show curvature or deviation from a single power law and can be well modeled by a log parabola model. In some of the observations, we find spectral flattening after 6 keV. In order to find the possible origin of the X-ray excess, we built the Multiband Spectral Energy distribution. We find that the X-ray excess in PKS 2155–304 is difficult to fit in the one zone model but, could be easily reconciled in the spine/layer jet structure. The hard X-ray excess can be explained by the inverse Comptonization of the synchrotron photons (from the layer) by the spine electrons.

Mrk 421 after the Giant X-Ray Outburst in 2013

Abstract We present the results of the Swift observations of the nearby BL Lac object Mrk 421 during 2013 November–2015 June. The source exhibited a strong long-term variability in the 0.3–10 keV band, with a maximum-to-minimum flux ratio of 13, and underwent X-ray flares by a factor of 1.8–5.2 on timescales of a few weeks or shorter. The source showed 48 instances of intraday flux variability in this period, which sometimes was observed within the 1 ks observational run. It was characterized by fractional amplitudes of 1.5(0.3)%–38.6(0.4)% and flux doubling/halving times of 2.6–20.1 hr. The X-ray flux showed a lack of correlation with the TeV flux on some occasions (strong TeV flares were not accompanied by comparable X-ray activity and vice versa), indicating that the high-energy emission in Mrk 421 was generated from an emission region more complex than a single zone. The best fits of the 0.3–10 keV spectra were mainly obtained using the log-parabola model, showing a strong spectral variability that generally followed a “harder-when-brighter” trend. The position of the synchrotron spectral energy distribution peak showed an extreme range from a few eV to ∼10 keV that happens rarely in blazars.