TY - JOUR

T1 - Testing particle acceleration in blazar jets with continuous high-cadence optical polarization observations

AU - Liodakis, Ioannis

AU - Kiehlmann, Sebastian

AU - Marscher, Alan P.

AU - Zhang, Haocheng

AU - Blinov, Dmitry

AU - Jorstad, Svetlana G.

AU - Agudo, Iván

AU - Benítez, Erika

AU - Berdyugin, Andrei

AU - Bonnoli, Giacomo

AU - Casadio, Carolina

AU - Chen, Chien-Ting

AU - Chen, Wen-Ping

AU - Ehlert, Steven R.

AU - Escudero, Juan

AU - Grishina, Tatiana S.

AU - Hiriart, David

AU - Hsu, Angela

AU - Imazawa, Ryo

AU - Jermak, Helen E.

AU - Jose, Jincen

AU - Kaaret, Philip

AU - Kopatskaya, Evgenia N.

AU - Lalchand, Bhavana

AU - Larionova, Elena G.

AU - Lindfors, Elina

AU - López, José M.

AU - McCall, Callum

AU - Morozova, Daria A.

AU - Palaiologou, Efthymios

AU - Pandey, Shivangi

AU - Poutanen, Juri

AU - Rakshit, Suvendu

AU - Reig, Pablo

AU - Sasada, Mahito

AU - Savchenko, Sergey S.

AU - Shablovinskaya, Elena

AU - Neha, Sharma

AU - Shrestha, Manisha

AU - Steele, Iain A.

AU - Troitskiy, Ivan S.

AU - Troitskaya, Yulia V.

AU - Uemura, Makoto

AU - Vasilyev, Andrey A.

AU - Weaver, Zachary R.

AU - Wiersema, Klaas

AU - Weisskopf, Martin C.

PY - 2024/9/13

Y1 - 2024/9/13

N2 - Variability can be the pathway to understanding the physical processes in astrophysical jets. However, the high-cadence observations required to test particle acceleration models are still missing. Here we report on the first attempt to produce continuous, $>24$ hour polarization light curves of blazars using telescopes distributed across the globe, following the rotation of the Earth, to avoid the rising Sun. Our campaign involved 16 telescopes in Asia, Europe, and North America. We observed BL Lacertae and CGRaBS J0211+1051 for a combined 685 telescope hours. We find large variations in the polarization degree and angle for both sources on sub-hour timescales as well as a $ rotation of the polarization angle in CGRaBS J0211+1051 in less than two days. We compared our high-cadence observations to particle-in-cell magnetic reconnection and turbulent plasma simulations. We find that although the state-of-the-art simulation frameworks can produce a large fraction of the polarization properties, they do not account for the entirety of the observed polarization behavior in blazar jets.

AB - Variability can be the pathway to understanding the physical processes in astrophysical jets. However, the high-cadence observations required to test particle acceleration models are still missing. Here we report on the first attempt to produce continuous, $>24$ hour polarization light curves of blazars using telescopes distributed across the globe, following the rotation of the Earth, to avoid the rising Sun. Our campaign involved 16 telescopes in Asia, Europe, and North America. We observed BL Lacertae and CGRaBS J0211+1051 for a combined 685 telescope hours. We find large variations in the polarization degree and angle for both sources on sub-hour timescales as well as a $ rotation of the polarization angle in CGRaBS J0211+1051 in less than two days. We compared our high-cadence observations to particle-in-cell magnetic reconnection and turbulent plasma simulations. We find that although the state-of-the-art simulation frameworks can produce a large fraction of the polarization properties, they do not account for the entirety of the observed polarization behavior in blazar jets.

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/8f7ab0cb-66e4-3a3c-8ef0-fcb3fec51e29/

U2 - 10.1051/0004-6361/202451037

DO - 10.1051/0004-6361/202451037

M3 - Article

VL - 689

JO - ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

JF - ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

SN - 0004-6361

M1 - A200

ER -