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This is an Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited., Context. The γ-ray emitting source WISE J141046.00+740511.2 has been associated with a Fermi-LAT detection by crossmatching with Swift/XRT data. It has shown all the canonical observational characteristics of a BL Lac source, including a power-law, featureless optical spectrum. However, it was only recently detected at radio frequencies and its radio flux is significantly low. Aims. Given that a radio detection is fundamental to associate lower-energy counterparts to Fermi-LAT sources, we aim to unambiguously classify this source by performing a multiwavelength analysis based on contemporaneous data. Methods. By using multifrequency observations at the Jansky Very Large Array, Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, Gran Telescopio Canarias, Gemini, William Herschel Telescope and Liverpool observatories, together with Fermi-LAT and Swift data, we carried out two kinds of analyses. On one hand, we studied several known parameters that account for the radio loudness or weakness characterization and their application to blazars (in general) and to our source (in particular). And, on the other hand, we built and analyzed the observed spectral energy distribution (SED) of this source to try to explain its peculiar characteristics. Results. The multiwavelength analysis indicates that WISE J141046.00+740511.2 is a blazar of the high-frequency peaked (HBL) type that emits highly polarized light and that is likely located at a low redshift. In addition, the one-zone model parameters that best fit its SED are those of an extreme HBL (EHBL); this blazar type has been extensively predicted in theory to be lacking in the radio emission that is otherwise typical of canonical γ-ray blazars. Conclusions. We confirm that WISE J141046.00+740511.2 is indeed a highly polarized BL Lac of the HBL type. Further studies will be conducted to explain the atypical low radio flux detected for this source. © The Authors 2023., F.L.V. acknowledges support from the Argentine agency CONICET (PIP 2021-0554). V.R., I.A. and S.A.C. acknowledge the support from Universidad Nacional de La Plata through grant 11/G153. P.B. and J.S. acknowledge support from ANPCyT PICT 2017-0773. E.J.M. would like to acknowledge, on behalf of all the authors, all the observing facilities and instruments that are mentioned in the following, as well as the staff involved in data acquisition. This work is based on observations obtained at the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation on behalf of the Gemini Observatory partnership: the National Science Foundation (USA), National Research Council (Canada), Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (Argentina), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (Brazil), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Republic of Korea). In this research we utilised data acquired by the Gran Telescopio Canarias. GTC is a Spanish initiative led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). The project is actively supported by the Spanish Government and the Local Government from the Canary Islands through the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER) provided by the European Union. The project also includes the participation of Mexico (Instituto de Astronomía de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IA-UNAM) and Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), and the US University of Florida. This work includes data acquired at the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, which is run by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Pune, India. This article uses data taken by operating the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, a part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This work made use of data supplied by the UK Swift Science Data Centre at the University of Leicester. We acknowledge the Liverpool Telescope, which is operated on the island of La Palma by Liverpool John Moores University in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias with financial support from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, for the provided data. This article includes data acquired by the William Herschel Telescope, which is operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. This work was partially supported by CONACyT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología) research grant 280789 (Mexico). N.C.S. acknowledges support by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), and from STFC grant ST/M001326/1. J.A.C. is a María Zambrano researcher fellow funded by the European Union -NextGenerationEU- (UJAR02MZ). This work received financial support from PICT-2017-2865 (ANPCyT) and PIP 0113 (CONICET). J.A.C. was also supported by grant PID2019-105510GB-C32/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 from the Agencia Estatal de Investigación of the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, and by Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo of Junta de Andalucía as research group FQM-322, as well as FEDER funds. The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys (PS1) and the PS1 public science archive have been made possible through contributions by the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS Project Office, the Max-Planck Society and its participating institutes, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, The Johns Hopkins University, Durham University, the University of Edinburgh, the Queen’s University Belfast, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated, the National Central University of Taiwan, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX08AR22G issued through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, the National Science Foundation Grant No. AST-1238877, the University of Maryland, Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation., With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (CEX2021-001131-S).

Full list of authors: Valtonen, Mauri J.; Dey, Lankeswar; Zola, S.; Ciprini, S.; Kidger, M.; Pursimo, T.; Gopakumar, A.; Matsumoto, K.; Sadakane, K.; Caton, D. B.; Nilsson, K.; Komossa, S.; Bagaglia, M.; Baransky, A.; Boumis, P.; Boyd, D.; Castro-Tirado, A. J.; Debski, B.; Drozdz, M.; Escartin Perez, A.; Fiorucci, M.; Garcia, F.; Gazeas, K.; Ghosh, S.; Godunova, V; Gomez, J. L.; Gredel, R.; Grupe, D.; Haislip, J. B.; Henning, T.; Hurst, G.; Janik, J.; Kouprianov, V. V.; Lehto, H.; Liakos, A.; Mathur, S.; Mugrauer, M.; Naves Nogues, R.; Nucciarelli, G.; Ogloza, W.; Ojha, D. K.; Pajdosz-Smierciak, U.; Pascolini, S.; Poyner, G.; Reichart, D. E.; Rizzi, N.; Roncella, F.; Sahu, D. K.; Sillanpaa, A.; Simon, A.; Siwak, M.; Soldan Alfaro, F. C.; Sonbas, E.; Tosti, G.; Vasylenko, V.; Webb, J. R.; Zielinski, P., OJ 287 is a BL Lacertae type quasar in which the active galactic nucleus (AGN) outshines the host galaxy by an order of magnitude. The only exception to this may be at minimum light when the AGN activity is so low that the host galaxy may make quite a considerable contribution to the photometric intensity of the source. Such a dip or a fade in the intensity of OJ 287 occurred in 2017 November, when its brightness was about 1.75 mag lower than the recent mean level. We compare the observations of this fade with similar fades in OJ 287 observed earlier in 1989, 1999, and 2010. It appears that there is a relatively strong reddening of the B− V colours of OJ 287 when its V-band brightness drops below magnitude 17. Similar changes are also seen in V− R, V− I, and R− I colours during these deep fades. These data support the conclusion that the total magnitude of the host galaxy is V = 18.0 ± 0.3, corresponding to MK = −26.5 ± 0.3 in the K-band. This is in agreement with the results, obtained using the integrated surface brightness method, from recent surface photometry of the host. These results should encourage us to use the colour separation method also in other host galaxies with strongly variable AGN. In the case of OJ 287, both the host galaxy and its central black hole are among the biggest known, and its position in the black hole mass–galaxy mass diagram lies close to the mean correlation. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society., SZ would also like to acknowledge support of the NCN grant no. 2018/29/B/ST9/01793, and KM JSPS KAKENHI grant no. 19K03930., With funding from the Spanish government through the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation SEV-2017-0709.

Context. Many questions concerning the nature of astrophysical counterparts of high-energy neutrinos remain unanswered. There is increasing evidence of a connection between blazar jets and neutrino events, with the flare of the γ-ray blazar TXS 0506+056 in spatial and temporal proximity of IC 170922A representing one of the most outstanding associations of high-energy neutrinos with astrophysical sources reported so far. Aims. With the purpose of characterising potential blazar counterparts to high-energy neutrinos, we analysed the parsec-scale regions of γ-ray blazars in spatial coincidence with high-energy neutrinos, detected by the IceCube Observatory. Specifically, we intended to investigate peculiar radio properties of the candidate counterparts related to the neutrino production, such as radio flares coincident with the neutrino detection or features in jet morphology (limb brightening, transverse structures). Methods. We collected multi-frequency, very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) follow-up observations of candidate counterparts of four high-energy neutrino events detected by IceCube between January 2019 and November 2020, with a focus on γ-ray-associated objects. We analysed their radio characteristics soon after the neutrino arrival in comparison with archival VLBI observations and low-frequency radio observations. We discussed our results with respect to previous statistical works and studies on the case of TXS 0506+056. Results. We identified and analysed five potential neutrino-emitting blazars in detail. Our results suggest an enhanced state of activity for one source, PKS 1725+123. However, the lack of adequate monitoring prior to the neutrino events was a limitation in tracing radio activity and morphological changes in all the sources. Conclusions. We suggest that PKS 1725+123 is a promising neutrino source candidate. For the other sources, our results alone do not reveal a strong connection between the radio activity state at the neutrino arrival. A larger number of VLBI and multi-wavelength follow-up observations of neutrino events are now essential to our understanding of the neutrino production mechanisms in astrophysical sources.© ESO 2022., We thank the referee for her/his useful suggestions. J.M. and MPT acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709) and through grants RTI2018-096228-B-C31 and PID2020-117404GB-C21 (MICIU/FEDER, EU). S.B. acknowledges financial support by the European Research Council for the ERC Starting grant MessMapp, under contract no. 949555. B.W.S. is grateful for the support by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) of Korea (NRF-2020K1A3A1A78114060). We thank to L. Petrov for granting permission for using data from the Astrogeo VLBI FITS image database. The European VLBI Network is a joint facility of independent European, African, Asian, and North American radio astronomy institutes. Scientific results from data presented in this publication are derived from the following EVN project codes: RG011, EG108. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This work made use of the Swinburne University of Technology software correlator, developed as part of the Australian Major National Research Facilities Programme and operated under licence. e-MERLIN is a National Facility operated by the University of Manchester at Jodrell Bank Observatory on behalf of STFC. This research has made use of data from the MOJAVE database that is maintained by the MOJAVE team (Lister et al. 2018). This research has made use of the CIRADA cutout service at URL cutouts.cirada.ca, operated by the Canadian Initiative for Radio Astronomy Data Analysis (CIRADA). CIRADA is funded by a grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation 2017 Innovation Fund (Project 35999), as well as by the Provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec, in collaboration with the National Research Council of Canada, the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

High-energy neutrinos are a promising tool for identifying astrophysical sources of high and ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR). Prospects of detecting neutrinos at high energies ($\gtrsim$TeV) from blazars have been boosted after the recent association of IceCube-170922A and TXS 0506+056. We investigate the high-energy neutrino, IceCube-190331A, a high-energy starting event (HESE) with a high likelihood of being astrophysical in origin. We initiated a Swift/XRT and UVOT tiling mosaic of the neutrino localisation, and followed up with ATCA radio observations, compiling a multiwavelength SED for the most likely source of origin. NuSTAR observations of the neutrino location and a nearby X-ray source were also performed. We find two promising counterpart in the 90% confidence localisation region and identify the brightest as the most likely counterpart. However, no Fermi/LAT $\gamma$-ray source and no prompt Swift/BAT source is consistent with the neutrino event. At this point it is unclear whether any of the counterparts produced IceCube-190331A. We note that the Helix Nebula is also consistent with the position of the neutrino event, and we calculate that associated particle acceleration processes cannot produce the required energies to generate a high-energy HESE neutrino., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication by MNRAS

The \textit{Herschel} Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS), that has covered about 642 sq. deg. in 5 bands from 100 to 500 $\mu\rm m$, allows a blind flux-limited selection of blazars at sub-mm wavelengths. However, blazars constitute a tiny fraction of H-ATLAS sources and therefore identifying them is not a trivial task. Using the data on known blazars detected by the H-ATLAS we have defined a locus for 500\,$\mu$m selected blazars and exploited it to select blazar candidates in the H-ATLAS fields. Candidates and known blazars in the H-ATLAS equatorial and South Galactic Pole fields were followed up with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) or with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), and matched with existing radio- and mm-catalogues to reconstruct the spectral behaviour over at least 6 orders of magnitude in frequency. We identified a selection approach that, combining the information in the sub-mm and radio domains, efficiently singles out genuine blazars. In this way, we identified a sample of 39 blazars brighter than $S_{500\mu\rm m} = 35\,$mJy in the H-ATLAS fields. Tests made cross-matching the H-ATLAS catalogues with large catalogues of blazar candidates indicate that the sample is complete. The derived counts are compared with model predictions finding good consistency with the C2Ex model and with estimates based on ALMA data., Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, accepted by MNRAS

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)., We review results from the POLAMI program, which monitors the polarization properties of 36 blazars at the IRAM 30 m telescope. We found that the variability of the degree of linear polarization is faster and of higher amplitude at 1 mm than at 3 mm and that the linear polarization is also more variable than the total flux. The linear polarization angle is highly variable in all sources with excursions > 180°; and for the case of the polarization angle, also the 1 mm variations appear to be faster than those at 3 mm. These results are fully compatible with recent multi-zone turbulent jet models, and they definitively rule out the popular single-zone models for blazars. They also further confirm that the short-wavelength (inner) emitting regions have better ordered magnetic fields than the long-wavelength ones (further downstream). Moreover, the POLAMI program has shown statistical evidence that, for most of the monitored sources, circular polarization emission is displayed the majority of the time. The circular polarization detection rate and the maximum degree of circular polarization found are comparable with previous surveys at much longer wavelengths, thus, opening a new window for circular polarization and jet composition studies in the mm range. The process generating circular polarization must not be strongly wavelength-dependent. The widespread presence of circular polarization in the POLAMI sample is likely due to Faraday conversion of the linearly polarized synchrotron radiation in the helical magnetic field of the jets. The peculiar behavior of circular polarization in 3C 66A, which we consider a hallmark of circular polarization generation by Faraday conversion in helical fields, is discussed. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland., I.A. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación” (MICINN) through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía-CSIC (SEV-2017-0709). The POLAMI program was supported in part by MICINN through grants AYA2016-80889-P and PID2019-107847RB-C44.

Due to the compactness active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are still unresolved with optical observations. However, structure and physical conditions of the matter in their central parts are especially important to study the processes of the matter accretion to supermassive black holes and eventually these investigations are essential to understand the galaxy evolution. Polarization contains information about the interaction of electromagnetic waves with the environment and provides information about the physical processes in the central regions of the AGNs that could not be found with the help of other optical observations. In this paper, the importance of applying polarimetry methods to the study of geometry, kinematics, and physical processes in active galactic nuclei (AGN) in polarized light is discussed. An overview of the mechanisms of polarization formation, their connection with different structures and scales are provided. Also, we overview the polarimetric investigations based on different assumptions that are done using the observations conducted in Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences., Proceeding to the XII SCSLSA; published in Open Astronomy

Time-variable polarization is an extremely valuable observational tool to probe the dynamical physical conditions of blazar jets. Since 2008, we have been monitoring the flux and linear polarization of a sample of gamma-ray bright blazars at optical frequencies. Some of the observations were performed on nightly or intra-night time-scales in four optical bands, providing information on the frequency and time dependence of the polarization. The observed behavior is similar to that found in simulations of turbulent plasma in a relativistic jet that contains a standing shock and/or a helical background magnetic field. Similar simulations predict the characteristics of X-ray synchrotron polarization of blazars that will be measured in the future by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE)., Comment: 2021, Special issue of Galaxies, "Polarimetry as a Probe of Magnetic Fields in AGN Jets", ed. M.F. Aller, J.L. Gomez, & E. Perlman

Blazar variability appears to be stochastic in nature. However, a possibility of low-dimensional chaos was considered in the past, but with no unambiguous detection so far. If present, it would constrain the emission mechanism by suggesting an underlying dynamical system. We rigorously searched for signatures of chaos in Fermi-Large Area Telescope light curves of 11 blazars. The data were comprehensively investigated using the methods of nonlinear time-series analysis: phase-space reconstruction, fractal dimension, and maximal Lyapunov exponent (mLE). We tested several possible parameters affecting the outcomes, in particular the mLE, in order to verify the spuriousness of the outcomes. We found no signs of chaos in any of the analysed blazars. Blazar variability is either truly stochastic in nature or governed by high-dimensional chaos that can often resemble randomness. © 2021 The Author(s)., OO thanks the Astronomical Observatory of the Jagiellonian University for the summer internship during which this research began. MT acknowledges support by the Polish National Science Center through the OPUS grant No. 2017/25/B/ST9/01208. The work of N. Z is supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative (grant no. 64789) of the Department of Science and Innovation and the National Research Foundation of South Africa. J.P.-G. acknowledges funding support from Spanish public funds for research under project ESP2017-87676-C5-5-R and financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the `Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa' award to the Instituto de Astrof ' isica de Andaluc ' ia (SEV-2017-0709).

Full list of authors: Raiteri, C. M.; Villata, M.; Larionov, V. M.; Jorstad, S. G.; Marscher, A. P.; Weaver, Z. R.; Acosta-Pulido, J. A.; Agudo, I.; Andreeva, T.; Arkharov, A.; Bachev, R.; Benítez, E.; Berton, M.; Björklund, I.; Borman, G. A.; Bozhilov, V.; Carnerero, M. I.; Carosati, D.; Casadio, C.; Chen, W. P. Damljanovic, G.; D'Ammando, F.; Escudero, J.; Fuentes, A.; Giroletti, M.; Grishina, T. S.; Gupta, A. C.; Hagen-Thorn, V. A.; Hart, M.; Hiriart, D.; Hou, W. -J.; Ivanov, D.; Kim, J. -Y.; Kimeridze, G. N.; Konstantopoulou, C.; Kopatskaya, E. N.; Kurtanidze, O. M.; Kurtanidze, S. O.; Lähteenmäki, A.; Larionova, E. G.; Larionova, L. V.; Marchili, N.; Markovic, G.; Minev, M.; Morozova, D. A.; Myserlis, I.; Nakamura, M.; Nikiforova, A. A.; Nikolashvili, M. G.; Otero-Santos, J.; Ovcharov, E.; Pursimo, T.; Rahimov, I.; Righini, S.; Sakamoto, T.; Savchenko, S. S.; Semkov, E. H.; Shakhovskoy, D.; Sigua, L. A.; Stojanovic, M.; Strigachev, A.; Thum, C.; Tornikoski, M.; Traianou, E.; Troitskaya, Y. V.; Troitskiy, I. S.; Tsai, A.; Valcheva, A.; Vasilyev, A. A.; Vince, O.; Zaharieva, E., Among active galactic nuclei, blazars show extreme variability properties. We here investigate the case of the BL Lac object S4 0954+65 with data acquired in 2019-2020 by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) Collaboration. The 2-min cadence optical light curves provided by TESS during three observing sectors of nearly 1 month each allow us to study the fast variability in great detail. We identify several characteristic short-term time-scales, ranging from a few hours to a few days. However, these are not persistent, as they differ in the various TESS sectors. The long-term photometric and polarimetric optical and radio monitoring undertaken by the WEBT brings significant additional information, revealing that (i) in the optical, long-term flux changes are almost achromatic, while the short-term ones are strongly chromatic; (ii) the radio flux variations at 37 GHz follow those in the optical with a delay of about 3 weeks; (iii) the range of variation of the polarization degree and angle is much larger in the optical than in the radio band, but the mean polarization angles are similar; (iv) the optical long-term variability is characterized by a quasi-periodicity of about 1 month. We explain the source behaviour in terms of a rotating inhomogeneous helical jet, whose pitch angle can change in time. © 2021 The Author(s)., This paper includes data collected by the TESS mission. Funding for the TESS mission is provided by the NASA Explorer Program. Partly based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, owned in collaboration by the University of Turku and Aarhus University, and operated jointly by Aarhus University, the University of Turku and the University of Oslo, representing Denmark, Finland and Norway, the University of Iceland and Stockholm University at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. This article is partly based on observations made in the Observatorios de Canarias del IAC with the Liverpool telescope operated on the island of La Palma by the Liverpool John Moores University in the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos. This article is partly based on observations made with the LCOGT Telescopes, one of whose nodes is located at the Observatorios de Canarias del IAC on the island of Tenerife in the Observatorio del Teide. This article is partly based on observations made with the IAC-80 operated on the island of Tenerife by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in the Spanish Observatorio del Teide. Many thanks are due to the IAC support astronomers and telescope operators for supporting the observations at the IAC-80 telescope. This publication makes use of data obtained at Metsähovi Radio Observatory, operated by Aalto University in Finland. This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System and of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The research at Boston University was supported by NASA grants 80NSSC20K1566 (Fermi Guest Investigator Program) and 80NSSC21K0243 (TESS Guest Investigator Program). This study was based (in part) on observations conducted using the 1.8 m Perkins Telescope Observatory (PTO) in Arizona (USA), which is owned and operated by Boston University. GD, MS, GM, and OV acknowledge the observing grant support from the Institute of Astronomy and Rozhen NAO BAS through the bilateral joint research project ‘Gaia Celestial Reference Frame (CRF) and fast variable astronomical objects’ (2020–2022, leader is G.Damljanovic), and support by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia (contract No 451-03-68/2020-14/200002) This research was partially supported by the Bulgarian National Science Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science under grants DN 18-13/2017, KP-06-H28/3 (2018), KP-06-H38/4 (2019), and KP-06-KITAJ/2 (2020). SOK acknowledges financial support by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia under contract PHDF-18-354 EB acknowledges support from DGAPA-PAPIIT GRANT IN113320. This work is partly based upon observations carried out at the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional on the Sierra San Pedro Mártir (OAN- SPM), Baja California, Mexico. We acknowledge support by Bulgarian National Science Fund under grant DN18-10/2017 and National RI Roadmap Project DO1-383/18.12.2020 of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Bulgaria. IA acknowledges financial support from the Spanish ‘Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación’ (MCINN) through the ‘Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa’ award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía-CSIC (SEV-2017-0709). Acquisition and reduction of the POLAMI data was supported in part by MICINN through grants AYA2016-80889-P and PID2019-107847RB-C44. The POLAMI observations were carried out at the IRAM 30m Telescope. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany) and IGN (Spain).

Full list of authors: Raiteri, C. M.; Villata, M.; Carosati, D.; Benítez, E.; Kurtanidze, S. O.; Gupta, A. C.; Mirzaqulov, D. O.; D'Ammando, F.; Larionov, V. M.; Pursimo, T.; Acosta-Pulido, J. A.; Baida, G. V.; Balmaverde, B.; Bonnoli, G.; Borman, G. A.; Carnerero, M. I.; Chen, W. -P.; Dhiman, V.; Di Maggio, A.; Ehgamberdiev, S. A.; Hiriart, D.; Kimeridze, G. N.; Kurtanidze, O. M.; Lin, C. S.; Lopez, J. M.; Marchini, A.; Matsumoto, K.; Mujica, R.; Nakamura, M.; Nikiforova, A. A.; Nikolashvili, M. G.; Okhmat, D. N.; Otero-Santos, J.; Rizzi, N.; Sakamoto, T.; Semkov, E.; Sigua, L. A.; Stiaccini, L.; Troitsky, I. S.; Tsai, A. L.; Vasilyev, A. A.; Zhovtan, A. V., Blazar S5 0716+714 is well-known for its short-term variability, down to intraday time-scales. We here present the 2-min cadence optical light curve obtained by the TESS space telescope in 2019 December-2020 January and analyse the object fast variability with unprecedented sampling. Supporting observations by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope Collaboration in B, V, R, and I bands allow us to investigate the spectral variability during the TESS pointing. The spectral analysis is further extended in frequency to the UV and X-ray bands with data from the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. We develop a new method to unveil the shortest optical variability time-scales. This is based on progressive de-trending of the TESS light curve by means of cubic spline interpolations through the binned fluxes, with decreasing time bins. The de-trended light curves are then analysed with classical tools for time-series analysis (periodogram, autocorrelation, and structure functions). The results show that below 3 d there are significant characteristic variability time-scales of about 1.7, 0.5, and 0.2 d. Variability on time-scales $\lesssim 0.2$ d is strongly chromatic and must be ascribed to intrinsic energetic processes involving emitting regions, likely jet substructures, with dimension less than about 10-3 pc. In contrast, flux changes on time-scales $\gtrsim 0.5$ d are quasi-achromatic and are probably due to Doppler factor changes of geometric origin. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society, The Astronomical Observatory of the University of Siena thanks the friend amateur astronomers Massimo Conti and Claudio Vallerani for their invaluable and unceasing contribution, essential for the performance of the observatory. This paper includes data collected by the TESS mission. Funding for the TESS mission is provided by the NASA Explorer Program. This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System and of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, operated by the Nordic Optical Telescope Scientific Association at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. Based (partly) on data obtained with the STELLA robotic telescopes in Tenerife, an AIP facility jointly operated by AIP and IAC. This work is partly based upon observations carried out at the Observatorio Astronomico Nacional on the Sierra San Pedro Martir (OAN-SPM), Baja California, Mexico. This research was partially supported by the Bulgarian National Science Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science under grantsDN18-13/2017, KP06-H28/3, and KP-06-PN38/4. KM acknowledges JSPS KAKENHI grant no. JP19K03930. SOK acknowledges financial support by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia under contract PHDF-18-354. EB acknowledges support from DGAPAPAPIIT GRANT IN113320. GB acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the 'Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa' award to the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709).

The synchrotron hump of the high energy peaked blazars generally lies in the 0.1-10 keV range and such sources show extreme flux and spectral variability in X-ray bands. Various spectral studies showed that the X-ray spectra of high energy peaked blazars are curved and better described by the log-parabolic model. The curvature is attributed to the energy dependent statistical acceleration mechanism. In this work, we review the X-ray spectral studies of high energy peaked blazars. It is found that the log-parabolic model well describes the spectra in a wide energy interval around the peak. The log-parabolic model provides the possibility of investigating the correlation between the spectral parameters derived from it. Therefore, we compiled the studies of correlations between the various parameters derived from the log-parabolic model and their implications to describe the variability mechanism of blazars., 7 Pages, 0 Figures. Published in the special issue "X-Ray Flux and Spectral Variability of Blazars" of Galaxies journal

We report the results of flux and spectral variability studies of all seven Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) observations of TeV &gamma, &minus, ray emitting blazar Markarian (or Mrk) 501. We found strong evidence of intraday variability in 3&ndash, 79 keV X-ray light curves (LCs) of Mrk 501 during four out of these seven observations. We examined spectral variability using a model-independent hardness-ratio analysis and found a general &ldquo, harder-when-brighter&rdquo, behaviour in two observations. We also investigated the nature of 3&ndash, 79 keV X-ray spectra of TeV blazar Mrk 501 and found that five out of seven spectra are well described by the curved log-parabola models with photon indices (at 10 keV) &alpha, &sim, 2.12&ndash, 2.32 and a curvature &beta, 0.15&ndash, 0.28. The two other spectra are somewhat better represented by simple power-law models with photon indices 2.70 and 2.75. We briefly discuss available physical models to explain our results.

Nearly 50% of all sources detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope are classified as blazars or blazar candidates, one of the most elusive classes of active galaxies. Additional blazars can also be hidden within the sample of unidentified or unassociated $\gamma$-ray sources (UGSs) that constitute about one-third of all gamma-ray sources detected to date. We recently confirmed that the large majority of Fermi blazars of the BL Lac subclass have an X-ray counterpart. Using the X-ray properties of a BL Lac training set and combining these with archival multifrequency information, we aim to search for UGSs that could have a BL Lac source within their $\gamma$-ray positional uncertainty regions. We reduced and analyzed the Swift X-ray observations of a selected sample of 327 UGSs. We then compared the X-ray fluxes and hardness ratios of all sources detected in the pointed fields with those of known Fermi BL Lacs. We find at least one X-ray source, lying within the $\gamma$-ray positional uncertainty at 95% confidence level, for 223 UGSs and a total of 464 X-ray sources in all fields analyzed. The X-ray properties of a large fraction of them, eventually combined with radio, infrared, and optical information, exhibit BL Lac multi-frequency behavior, thus allowing us to select high-confidence BL Lac candidates; some of them were recently observed during our optical spectroscopic campaign which confirmed their nature. We find that out of 50 X-ray sources that were confirmed as BL Lacs through optical spectroscopy, 12 do not show canonical mid-infrared or radio BL Lac properties. This indicates that the selection of X-ray BL Lac candidates is a strong method to find new counterparts within Fermi UGSs. Finally, we pinpoint a sample of 32 Swift/XRT candidate counterparts to Fermi UGSs that are most likely BL Lac objects., Comment: Published version

The high energy blazar, Markarian 501 was observed as a part of multi-instrument and multiwavelength campaign spanning the whole electromagnetic spectrum for 4.5 months during March 15 to August 1, 2009. On May 1, Whipple 10m telescope observed a very strong $\gamma$-ray flare in a time interval of about 0.5 h. Apart from this flare, high state and low state emissions were also observed by Whipple, VERITAS and MAGIC telescopes. Using the photohadronic model and accounting for the absorption of the extragalactic background light (EBL) to these very high energy $\gamma$-rays, excellent fits are obtained for the observed spectra. We have shown that the intrinsic spectrum for low state emission is flat, however, for high and very high states this is a power-law with slowly increasing exponent., Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures

MAGIC Collaboration: et al., [Context]: It has become evident that one-zone synchrotron self-Compton models are not always adequate for very high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray-emitting blazars. While two-component models perform better, they are difficult to constrain due to the large number of free parameters., [Aims]: In this work, we make a first attempt at taking into account the observational constraints from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) data, long-term light curves (radio, optical, and X-rays), and optical polarisation to limit the parameter space for a two-component model and test whether or not it can still reproduce the observed spectral energy distribution (SED) of the blazars., [Methods]: We selected five TeV BL Lac objects based on the availability of VHE gamma-ray and optical polarisation data. We collected constraints for the jet parameters from VLBI observations. We evaluated the contributions of the two components to the optical flux by means of decomposition of long-term radio and optical light curves as well as modelling of the optical polarisation variability of the objects. We selected eight epochs for these five objects based on the variability observed at VHE gamma rays, for which we constructed the SEDs that we then modelled with a two-component model., [Results]: We found parameter sets which can reproduce the broadband SED of the sources in the framework of two-component models considering all available observational constraints from VLBI observations. Moreover, the constraints obtained from the long-term behaviour of the sources in the lower energy bands could be used to determine the region where the emission in each band originates. Finally, we attempt to use optical polarisation data to shed new light on the behaviour of the two components in the optical band. Our observationally constrained two-component model allows explanation of the entire SED from radio to VHE with two co-located emission regions., VFR and EL were supported by Academy of Finland projects 317636 and 320045. We would like to thank the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias for the excellent working conditions at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos in La Palma. The financial support of the German BMBF and MPG; the Italian INFN and INAF; the Swiss National Fund SNF; the ERDF under the Spanish MINECO (FPA2017-87859-P, FPA2017-85668-P, FPA2017-82729-C6-2-R, FPA2017-82729-C6-6-R, FPA2017-82729-C6-5-R, AYA2015-71042-P, AYA2016-76012-C3-1-P, ESP2017-87055-C2-2-P, FPA2017-90566-REDC); the Indian Department of Atomic Energy; the Japanese ICRR, the University of Tokyo, JSPS, and MEXT; the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, National RI Roadmap Project DO1-268/16.12.2019 and the Academy of Finland grant nr. 320045 is gratefully acknowledged. This work was also supported by the Spanish Centro de Excelencia “Severo Ochoa” SEV-2016-0588 and SEV2015-0548, the Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu” MDM-2014-0369 and the “la Caixa” Foundation (fellowship LCF/BQ/PI18/11630012), by the Croatian Science Foundation (HrZZ) Project IP-2016-06-9782 and the University of Rijeka Project 13.12.1.3.02, by the DFG Collaborative Research Centers SFB823/C4 and SFB876/C3, the Polish National Research Centre grant UMO2016/22/M/ST9/00382 and by the Brazilian MCTIC, CNPq and FAPERJ.

Context. Blazars are the most numerous class of High Energy (HE; E about 50 MeV - few 100 GeV) and Very High Energy (VHE; E about 100 GeV - 10 TeV) gamma-ray emitters. As of today, a measured spectroscopic redshift is available for only about 50% of gamma-ray BL Lacs, mainly due to the difficulty of measuring reliable redshifts from their nearly featureless, continuum-dominated optical spectra. The knowledge of the redshift is fundamental for understanding the emission from blazars, for population studies and also for indirect studies of the extragalactic background light and searches for Lorentz invariance violation and axion-like particles using blazars. Aims. This paper is the first of a series of papers which aim to measure the redshift of a sample of blazars likely to be detected with the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), a ground based gamma-ray observatory. Methods. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to select those hard spectrum gamma-ray blazars detected with the Fermi-LAT telescope still lacking redshift measurements but likely to be detected by CTA in 30 hours of observing time or less. Optical observing campaigns involving deep imaging and spectroscopic observations were organised to efficiently constrain their redshifts. We performed deep medium to high resolution spectroscopy of nineteen blazar optical counterparts using the ESI spectrograph at Keck, the RSS spectrograph at the SALT telescope, and the EFOSC2 spectrograph at the ESO NTT. We searched systematically for spectral features and, when possible, we estimated the contribution of the host galaxy to the total flux. Results. We measured eleven firm spectroscopic redshifts with values ranging from 0.1116 to 0.482. one tentative redshift, three redshift lower limits including one at z > 0.449 and another at z > 0.868. There were four objects found to have featureless spectra., Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics

The nature of a substantial percentage (about one fifth) of hard X-ray sources discovered with the BAT instrument onboard the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (hereafter Swift) is unknown because of the lack of an identified longer-wavelength counterpart. Without such follow-up, an X-ray catalogue is of limited astrophysical value: we therefore embarked, since 2009, on a long-term project to uncover the optical properties of sources identified by Swift by using a large suite of ground-based telescopes and instruments. In this work, we continue our programme of characterization of unidentified or poorly studied hard X-ray sources by presenting the results of an optical spectroscopic campaign aimed at pinpointing and classifying the optical counterparts of 35 hard X-ray sources taken from the 70-month BAT catalogue. This sample was selected out of the available information about the chosen objects: either they are completely unidentified sources, or their association with a longer-wavelength counterpart is still ambiguous. With the use of optical spectra taken at six different telescopes we were able to identify the main spectral characteristics (continuum type, redshift, and emission or absorption lines) of the observed objects, and determined their nature. We identify and characterize a total of 41 optical candidate counterparts corresponding to 35 hard X-ray sources given that, because of positional uncertainties, multiple lower energy counterparts can sometimes be associated with higher energy detections. We discuss which ones are the actual (or at least most likely) counterparts based on our observational results. In particular, 31 sources in our sample are active galactic nuclei: 16 are classified as Type 1 (with broad and narrow emission lines) and 13 are classified as Type 2 (with narrow emission lines only); two more are BL Lac-type objects. We also identify one LINER, one starburst, and 3 elliptical galaxies. The remaining 5 objects are galactic sources: we identify 4 of them as cataclysmic variables, whereas one is a low mass X-ray binary., Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas, Instituto de Astrofísica de La Plata

A significant fraction of all $\gamma$-ray sources detected by the Large Area Telescope aboard the \fer\ satellite is still lacking a low-energy counterpart. In addition, there is still a large population of $\gamma$-ray sources with associated low-energy counterparts that lack firm classifications. In the last 10 years we have undertaken an optical spectroscopic campaign to address the problem of unassociated/unidentified $\gamma$-ray sources (UGSs), mainly devoted to observing blazars and blazar candidates because they are the largest population of $\gamma$-ray sources associated to date. Here we describe the overall impact of our optical spectroscopic campaign on sources associated in \fer-LAT catalogs, coupled with objects found in the literature. In the literature search, we kept track of efforts by different teams that presented optical spectra of counterparts or potential counterparts of \fer-LAT catalog sources. Our summary includes an analysis of an additional 30 newly-collected optical spectra of counterparts or potential counterparts of \fer-LAT sources of previously unknown nature.New spectra were acquired at the Blanco 4-m and OAN-SPM 2.1-m telescopes, and those available in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (data release 15) archive. All new sources with optical spectra analyzed here are classified as blazars. Thanks to our campaign, we altogether discovered and classified 394 targets with an additional 123 objects collected from a literature search. We began our optical spectroscopic campaign between the release of the second and third \fer-LAT source catalogs (2FGL and 3FGL, respectively), and classified about 25\% of the sources with uncertain nature and discovered a blazar-like potential counterpart for $\sim$10\% of UGSs listed therein. In the 4FGL catalog, about 350 \fer-LAT sources are classified to date thanks to our campaign. [incomplete abstract], Comment: 31 pages, 12 tables, 32 figures, 2 appendices, accepted for publication on A&A (pre-proofs version)

We present the 1-100 GeV spectral energy distribution for a population of 148 high-synchrotron-peaked blazars (HSPs) recently detected with Fermi-LAT as part of the First Brazil-ICRANet Gamma-ray Blazar catalogue (1BIGB). Most of the 1BIGB sources do not appear in previous Fermi-LAT catalogues and their gamma-ray spectral properties are presented here for the first time, representing a significant new extension of the gamma-ray blazar population. Since our sample was originally selected from an excess signal in the 0.3-500 GeV band, the sources stand out as promising TeV blazar candidates, potentially in reach of the forthcoming very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray observatory, CTA. The flux estimates presented here are derived considering PASS8 data, integrating over more than 9 years of Fermi-LAT observations. We also review the full broadband fit between 0.3-500 GeV presented in the original 1BIGB paper for all sources, updating the power-law parameters with currently available Fermi-LAT dataset. The importance of these sources in the context of VHE population studies with both current instruments and the future CTA is evaluated. To do so, we select a subsample of 1BIGB sources and extrapolate their gamma-ray SEDs to the highest energies, properly accounting for absorption due to the extragalactic background light. We compare those extrapolations to the published CTA sensitivity curves and estimate their detectability by CTA. Two notable sources from our sample, namely 1BIGB J224910.6-130002 and 1BIGB J194356.2+211821, are discussed in greater detail. All gamma-ray SEDs, which are shown here for the first time, are made publicly available via the Brazilian Science Data Center (BSDC) service, maintained at CBPF, in Rio de Janeiro., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures

We present 15 GHz stacked VLBA images of 373 jets associated with active galactic nuclei (AGN) having at least five observing epochs within a 20 yr time interval 1994-2015 from the MOJAVE programme and/or its precursor, the 2 cm VLBA Survey. These data are supplemented by 1.4 GHz single-epoch VLBA observations of 135 MOJAVE AGNs to probe larger scale jet structures. The typical jet geometry is found to be close to conical on scales from hundreds to thousands of parsecs, while a number of galaxies show quasi-parabolic streamlines on smaller scales. A true jet geometry in a considerable fraction of AGNs appears only after stacking epochs over several years. The jets with significant radial accelerated motion undergo more active collimation. We have analysed total intensity jet profiles transverse to the local jet ridgeline and derived both apparent and intrinsic opening angles of the flows, with medians of $21.5\deg$ and $1.3\deg$, respectively. The Fermi LAT-detected gamma-ray AGNs in our sample have, on average, wider apparent and narrower intrinsic opening angle, and smaller viewing angle than non LAT-detected AGNs. We have established a highly significant correlation between the apparent opening angle and gamma-ray luminosity, driven by Doppler beaming and projection effects., Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables. Tables 1-4 are available at CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/MNRAS

We report on long-term multiwavelength monitoring of blazar Mrk 421 by the GLAST-AGILE Support Program of the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (GASP-WEBT) collaboration and Steward Observatory, and by the Swift and Fermi satellites. We study the source behaviour in the period 2007-2015, characterized by several extreme flares. The ratio between the optical, X-ray and γ-ray fluxes is very variable. The γ-ray flux variations show a fair correlation with the optical ones starting from 2012. We analyse spectropolarimetric data and find wavelength-dependence of the polarization degree (P), which is compatible with the presence of the host galaxy, and no wavelength dependence of the electric vector polarization angle (EVPA). Optical polarimetry shows a lack of simple correlation between P and flux and wide rotations of the EVPA. We build broad-band spectral energy distributions with simultaneous near-infrared and optical data from the GASP-WEBT and ultraviolet and X-ray data from the Swift satellite. They show strong variability in both flux and X-ray spectral shape and suggest a shift of the synchrotron peak up to a factor of ~50 in frequency. The interpretation of the flux and spectral variability is compatible with jet models including at least two emitting regions that can change their orientation with respect to the line of sight.© 2017 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society., The Abastumani team acknowledges financial support by Shota Rustaveli NSF under contract FR/577/6-320/13. The research at BU was supported in part by US National Science Foundation grant AST-1615796 and NASA Fermi Guest Investigator grant NNX14AQ58G. This study makes use of 43 GHz VLBA data from the VLBA-BU Blazar Monitoring Program (VLBA-BUBLAZAR; http://www.bu.edu/blazars/VLBAproject.html), funded by NASA through the Fermi Guest Investigator Program. The PRISM camera at the Lowell Observatory was developed by K. Janes et al. at the BU and Lowell Observatory, with funding from the NSF, BU and Lowell Observatory. This research has made use of data from the MOJAVE data base, which is maintained by the MOJAVE team (Lister et al. 2009). The St. Petersburg University team acknowledges support from Russian RFBR grant 15-02-00949 and St. Petersburg University research grant 6.38.335.2015. This paper is partly based on observations carried out at the German Spanish Calar Alto Observatory, which is jointly operated by the MPIA and the IAA-CSIC. IA research is supported by a Ramon y Cajal grant of the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO). Acquisition of the MAPCAT data was supported in part by MINECO through grants AYA2010-14844, AYA2013-40825-P and AYA2016-80889-P, and by the Regional Government of Andalucia through grant P09-FQM-4784. This research was partially supported by the Scientific Research Fund of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Sciences under grants DO 02-137 (BIn-13/09) and DN 08/1. The Skinakas Observatory is a collaborative project of the University of Crete, the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas and the Max-Planck-Institut fur Extrater-restrische Physik. GD and OV gratefully acknowledge the observing grant support from the Institute of Astronomy and Rozhen National Astronomical Observatory, Bulgaria Academy of Sciences, via the bilateral joint research project 'Observations of ICRF radio-sources visible in optical domain' (the head is Dr G. Damljanovic). This work is a part of the Projects No 176011 ('Dynamics and kinematics of celestial bodies and systems'), No 176004 ('Stellar physics') and No 176021 ('Visible and invisible matter in nearby galaxies: theory and observations') supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. The Serbian station is the Astronomical Station Vidojevica (ASV) with the 60-cm ASV telescope (and from this year, the 1.4-m ASV one). This research was supported partly by funds of the project RD-08-81 of the Shumen University.

It has been proposed that blazar jets are structured, with a fast spine surrounded by a slower sheath or layer. This structured jet model explains some properties of their emission and morphology. Because of their relative motion, the radiation produced by one component is seen amplified by the other, thus enhancing the inverse Compton emission of both. Radiation is emitted anisotropically in the comoving frames, and causes the emitting plasma to recoil. As seen in the observer frame, this corresponds to a deceleration of the fastest component (the spine) and an acceleration of the slower one (the layer). While the deceleration of the spine has already been investigated, here we study for the first time the acceleration of the sheath and find self-consistent velocity profile solutions for both the spine and the sheath while accounting for radiative cooling. We find that the sheath can be accelerated to the velocities required by the observations if its leptons remain energetic in the acceleration region, assumed to be of the order of 100 Schwarzschild radii, demanding continuous injection of energetic particles in that region., Comment: 14 pages, 16 figures, submitted to MNRAS. Comments are welcome!

We have monitored the flat spectrum radio quasar, 3C 279, in the optical B, V, R and I passbands from 2018 February to 2018 July for 24 nights, with a total of 716 frames, to study flux, colour and spectral variability on diverse timescales. 3C 279 was observed using seven different telescopes: two in India, two in Argentina, two in Bulgaria and one in Turkey to understand the nature of the source in optical regime. The source was found to be active during the whole monitoring period and displayed significant flux variations in B, V, R, and I passbands. Variability amplitudes on intraday basis varied from 5.20% to 17.9%. A close inspection of variability patterns during our observation cycle reveals simultaneity among optical emissions from all passbands. During the complete monitoring period, progressive increase in the amplitude of variability with frequency was detected for our target. The amplitudes of variability in B, V, R and I passbands have been estimated to be 177%, 172%, 171% and 158%, respectively. Using the structure function technique, we found intraday timescales ranging from ∼23 minutes to about 115 minutes. We also studied colour-magnitude relationship and found indications of mild bluer-when-brighter trend on shorter timescales. Spectral indices ranged from 2.3 to 3.0 with no clear trend on long term basis. We have also generated spectral energy distributions for 3C 279 in optical B, V, R and I passbands for 17 nights. Finally, possible emission mechanisms causing variability in blazars are discussed briefly., Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas, Instituto de Astrofísica de La Plata

Historically, the blazar population has been poorly understood at low frequencies because survey sensitivity and angular resolution limitations have made it difficult to identify megahertz counterparts. We used the LOFAR Two-Metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) first data release value-added catalogue (LDR1) to study blazars in the low-frequency regime with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution. We identified radio counterparts to all $98$ known sources from the Third \textit{Fermi}-LAT Point Source Catalogue (3FGL) or Roma-BZCAT Multi-frequency Catalogue of Blazars ($5^{\mathrm{th}}$ edition) that fall within the LDR1 footprint. Only the 3FGL unidentified $\gamma$-ray sources (UGS) could not be firmly associated with an LDR1 source; this was due to source confusion. We examined the redshift and radio luminosity distributions of our sample, finding flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) to be more distant and more luminous than BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs) on average. Blazars are known to have flat spectra in the gigahertz regime but we found this to extend down to $144$ MHz, where the radio spectral index, $\alpha$, of our sample is $-0.17 \pm 0.14$. For BL Lacs, $\alpha = -0.13 \pm 0.16$ and for FSRQs, $\alpha = -0.15 \pm 0.17$. We also investigated the radio-to-$\gamma$-ray connection for the $30$ $\gamma$-ray-detected sources in our sample. We find Pearson's correlation coefficient is $0.45$ ($p = 0.069$). This tentative correlation and the flatness of the spectral index suggest that the beamed core emission contributes to the low-frequency flux density. We compare our sample distribution with that of the full LDR1 on colour-colour diagrams, and we use this information to identify possible radio counterparts to two of the four UGS within the LDR1 field. We will refine our results as LoTSS continues., Comment: 7 figures, 6 tables and 11 pages. This paper is part of the LOFAR surveys data release 1 and has been accepted for publication in a special edition of A&A that will appear in Feb 2019, volume 622. The catalogues and images from the data release will be publicly available on lofar-surveys.org upon publication of the journal

The Hubble constant H 0 and matter density Ωm of the universe are measured using the latest γ-ray attenuation results from Fermi-LAT and Cerenkov telescopes. This methodology is based upon the fact that the extragalactic background light supplies opacity for very high energy photons via photon-photon interaction. The amount of γ-ray attenuation along the line of sight depends on the expansion rate and matter content of the universe. This novel strategy results in a value of H0 = 67.4-6.2 +6.0 km s-1 Mpc-1 and Ωm = 0.14-0.07 +0.06. These estimates are independent and complementary to those based on the distance ladder, cosmic microwave background (CMB), clustering with weak lensing, and strong lensing data. We also produce a joint likelihood analysis of our results from γ-rays and those from more mature methodologies, excluding the CMB, yielding a combined value of H 0 = 66.6 ± 1.6 km s-1 Mpc-1 and Ωm = 0.29 ± 0.02. © 2019 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved., A.D. is thankful for the support of the Ramn y Cajal program from the Spanish MINECO. R.W. was supported by a grant from VILLUM FONDEN (Project No. 16599). J.F. is supported by NASA under contract S-15633Y. M.A. and A.D. acknowledge funding support from NSF through grant AST-1715256. K.H. acknowledges support from the Icelandic Research Fund, grant No. 173728-051. D.H. and L.M. acknowledge funding support from NASA through grant 80NSSC18K1720.

Extreme high-energy peaked BL Lac objects (EHBLs) are an emerging class of blazars. Their typical two-hump structured spectral energy distribution (SED) peaks at higher energies with respect to conventional blazars. Multi-wavelength (MWL) observations constrain their synchrotron peak in the medium to hard X-ray band. Their gamma-ray SED peaks above the GeV band, and in some objects it extends up to several TeV. Up to now, only a few EHBLs have been detected in the TeV gamma-ray range. In this paper, we report the detection of the EHBL 2WHSP J073326.7+515354, observed and detected during 2018 in TeV gamma rays with the MAGIC telescopes. The broad-band SED is studied within a MWL context, including an analysis of the Fermi-LAT data over ten years of observation and with simultaneous Swift-XRT, Swift-UVOT, and KVA data. Our analysis results in a set of spectral parameters that confirms the classification of the source as an EHBL. In order to investigate the physical nature of this extreme emission, different theoretical frameworks were tested to model the broad-band SED. The hard TeV spectrum of 2WHSP J073326.7+515354 sets the SED far from the energy equipartition regime in the standard one-zone leptonic scenario of blazar emission. Conversely, more complex models of the jet, represented by either a two-zone spine-layer model or a hadronic emission model, better represent the broad-band SED., MNRAS published

[EN] We analyze 7.3 yr of ANTARES high-energy neutrino and Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) g-ray data in search of cosmic neutrino + g-ray (n+g) transient sources or source populations. Our analysis has the potential to detect either individual n+g transient sources (durations dt5% of the observed gamma-coincident neutrinos in the track data at 90% concidence. Applying our analysis to the unscrambled data reveals no individual n+g events of high significance; two ANTARES track+ Fermi g-ray events are identi¿ed that exceed a once per decade false alarm rate threshold (p = 17%).No evidence for subthreshold ¿+¿ source populations is found among the track (p = 39%) or cascade (p = 60%) events. Exploring a possible correlation of high-energy neutrino directions with Fermi g-ray sky brightness identi¿ed in previous work yields no added support for this correlation. While TXS 0506+056, a blazar and variable (nontransient) Fermi g-ray source, has recently been identified as the first source of high-energy neutrinos, the challenges in reconciling observations of the Fermi g-ray sky, the IceCube high-energy cosmic neutrinos, and ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays using only blazars suggest a significant contribution by other source populations. Searches for transient sources of high-energy neutrinos thus remain interesting, with the potential for either neutrino clustering or multimessenger coincidence searches to lead to discovery of the first n+g transients., The authors thank David Thompson for helpful discussions. We gratefully acknowledge support from Penn State's Office of the Senior Vice President for Research, the Eberly College of Science, and the Penn State Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-1708146. K.M. is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-1620777. The authors acknowledge the financial support of the funding agencies: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Commissariat a l'energie atomique et aux energies alternatives (CEA), Commission Europeenne (FEDER fund and Marie Curie Program), Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), IdEx program and UnivEarthS Labex program at Sorbonne Paris Cite (ANR-10-LABX-0023 and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02), Labex OCEVU (ANR-11-LABX-0060) and the A*MIDEX project (ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02), Region Ile-de-France (DIM-ACAV), Region Alsace (contrat CPER), Region Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, Departement du Var and Ville de La Seyne-sur-Mer, France; Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), the Netherlands; Council of the President of the Russian Federation for young scientists and leading scientific schools supporting grants, Russia; Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation (UEFISCDI), Romania; Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO): Plan Estatal de Investigacion (refs. FPA2015-65150-C3-1-P, -2-P and -3-P, (MINECO/FEDER)), Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence and Red Consolider MultiDark (MINECO), and Prometeo and Grisolia programs (Generalitat Valenciana), Spain; Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Professional Training, Morocco. We also acknowledge the technical support of Ifremer, AIM and Foselev Marine for the sea operation and the CC-IN2P3 for the computing facilities. Software: Astropy (The Astropy Collaboration 2018), Matplotlib (Hunter 2007), HEASoft (Nasa High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (Heasarc), 2014), HEALPix (Gorski et al. 2005), SciPy (Jones et al. 2001-2019)

We report on optical spectroscopy obtained at the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias of 28 Fermi gamma-ray sources that completes the study of a sample of 60 targets of unidentified objects for which the detection of an X-ray and/or radio source inside the 3FGL error box is available. The observations are aimed to characterize the nature and measure the redshift of these sources. For all optical counterparts, the observations allow us to establish their AGN nature. In particular, we found 24 BL Lac objects, one QSO, one NLSy1 and two objects showing spectral features typical of Seyfert 2 galaxies. For most of them, we determine a spectroscopic redshift, while for five we can set lower limits based on the lack of stellar features from the host galaxy. The global properties of the full sample are briefly discussed., 26 pages, 3 figures, 4 tables; accepted for publication in ApJ

BL Lacertae objects constitute a rare class of active galactic nuclei with extreme observational features attributed to the Doppler-boosted emission from a relativistic jet, closely aligned to our line-of-sight. Their spectral energy distribution, extending over 17–19 orders of frequency from radio to the TeV energy range, is of non-thermal origin and shows a typical two-component structure. The lower-energy component, ranging from the radio to X-rays in the high-energy peaked BL Lacertae sources, is widely accepted to be a synchrotron radiation emitted by ultra-relativistic charged particles, to be initially accelerated via the Blandford–Znajek mechanism or magneto-hydrodynamic processes in the vicinity of the central super-massive black hole. However, the accelerated particles should lose the energy, sufficient for the emission of the keV-GeV photons, very quickly and the source can maintain its flaring state on the daily-weekly timescales only if some additional acceleration mechanisms are continuously at work. According to different studies and simulations,the particles can gain tremendous energies due to the propagation of relativistic shocks through the jet: By means of first-order Fermi mechanism at the shock front, or they undergo an efficient stochastic (second-order Fermi) acceleration close to the shock front, in the turbulent jet medium. Our intensive X-ray spectral study of TeV-detected, bright BL Lacertae objects (Mrk 421, 1ES 1959+650, Mrk 501) often show the signatures of the stochastic acceleration, while those related to the first-order Fermi process arefound relatively rarely. The TeV-undetected sources (1H 1516+660, BZB J1341+3959, BZB J1237+6258) mostly do not show the signatures of the efficient stochastic acceleration in their jets.

Cumulative optical and infrared emission from galaxies accumulated over cosmological time scales, the extragalactic background light (EBL), could be probed by complementary techniques of direct observations and source counting in the visible and infrared as well as via its imprint on the signal of distant active galactic nuclei in gamma rays. We compare the visible and infrared measurements with the gamma-ray constraints and study if the discrepancies of the measurements with different methods could be due to the presence of features in the EBL spectrum that are localised in the micron wavelength range. We combined data on time-averaged spectra of selected blazars that were obtained by Fermi and ground-based gamma-ray telescopes. We also modelled the effect of absorption on EBL while allowing for the existence of a previously unaccounted spectral feature. We show that a previously reported 'excess' in EBL flux in the $\sim 1$~micron wavelength range is consistent with gamma-ray measurements, that is, if the excess has the form of a narrow feature of the width $\delta \lambda < \lambda$ and an overall flux of up to 15 nW/(m$^2$ sr) above the 'minimal' EBL, which is estimated from the visible and infrared source counts. Such 'bump-like' spectral features could originate, for example, from decaying dark-matter particles, or either axions or peculiar astrophysical processes in the course of star-formation history. We discuss the possibilities for the search of spectral features in the EBL with the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA)., Comment: V2: 7 pages, 4 figures. Considerable changes in the blazar sample, results unchanged; discussions extended - version accepted by A&A

Detection of the IceCube-170922A neutrino coincident with the flaring blazar TXS 0506+056, the first and only 3-sigma high-energy neutrino source association to date, offers a potential breakthrough in our understanding of high-energy cosmic particles and blazar physics. We present a comprehensive analysis of TXS 0506+056 during its flaring state, using newly collected Swift, NuSTAR, and X-shooter data with Fermi observations and numerical models to constrain the blazar's particle acceleration processes and multimessenger (electromagnetic and high-energy neutrino) emissions. Accounting properly for electromagnetic cascades in the emission region, we find a physically-consistent picture only within a hybrid leptonic scenario, with gamma-rays produced by external inverse-Compton processes and high-energy neutrinos via a radiatively-subdominant hadronic component. We derive robust constraints on the blazar's neutrino and cosmic-ray emissions and demonstrate that, because of cascade effects, the 0.1-100keV emissions of TXS 0506+056 serve as a better probe of its hadronic acceleration and high-energy neutrino production processes than its GeV-TeV emissions. If the IceCube neutrino association holds, physical conditions in the TXS 0506+056 jet must be close to optimal for high-energy neutrino production, and are not favorable for ultra-high-energy cosmic-ray acceleration. Alternatively, the challenges we identify in generating a significant rate of IceCube neutrino detections from TXS 0506+056 may disfavor single-zone models. In concert with continued operations of the high-energy neutrino observatories, we advocate regular X-ray monitoring of TXS 0506+056 and other blazars in order to test single-zone blazar emission models, clarify the nature and extent of their hadronic acceleration processes, and carry out the most sensitive possible search for additional multimessenger sources., 23 pages, 6 figures, 9 tables, submitted to ApJ

The astrophysical journal / Supplement series 237(2), 32 (2018). doi:10.3847/1538-4365/aacdf7, We present a search for spatial extension in high-latitude ($| b| \gt 5^\circ $) sources in recent Fermi point source catalogs. The result is the Fermi High-Latitude Extended Sources Catalog, which provides source extensions (or upper limits thereof) and likelihood profiles for a suite of tested source morphologies. We find 24 extended sources, 19 of which were not previously characterized as extended. These include sources that are potentially associated with supernova remnants and star-forming regions. We also found extended $γ$-ray emission in the vicinity of the Cen A radio lobes and—at GeV energies for the first time—spatially coincident with the radio emission of the SNR CTA 1, as well as from the Crab Nebula. We also searched for halos around active galactic nuclei, which are predicted from electromagnetic cascades induced by the $e^+ e^−$ pairs that are deflected in intergalactic magnetic fields. These pairs are produced when γ-rays interact with background radiation fields. We do not find evidence for extension in individual sources or in stacked source samples. This enables us to place limits on the flux of the extended source components, which are then used to constrain the intergalactic magnetic field to be stronger than $3 × 10^{−16} G$ for a coherence length $λ \gtrsim$ 10 kpc, even when conservative assumptions on the source duty cycle are made. This improves previous limits by several orders of magnitude., Published by IOP, Chicago, Ill. [u.a.]

We report on the optical observations and analysis of the high-energy peaked BL Lac object (HBL), Mrk 501, at redshift z = 0.033. We can confirm microvariable behavior over the course of minutes on several occasions per night. As an alternative to the commonly understood dynamical model of random variations in intensity of the AGN, we develop a relativistic beaming model with a minimum of free parameters, which allows us to infer changes in the line of sight angles for the motion of the different relativistic components. We hope our methods can be used in future studies of beamed emission in other active microvariable sources, similar to the one we explored.

The observed log-normal flux distributions in the high energy emission from blazars have been interpreted as being due to variability stemming from non-linear multiplicative processes generated dynamically from the accretion disc. On the other hand, rapid minute scale variations in the flux point to a compact emitting region inside the jet, probably disconnected from the disc. In this work, we show that linear Gaussian variations of the intrinsic particle acceleration or escape time-scales can produce distinct non-Gaussian flux distributions, including log-normal ones. Moreover, the spectral index distributions can provide confirming evidence for the origin of the variability. Thus, modelling of the flux and index distributions can lead to quantitative identification of the micro-physical origin of the variability in these sources. As an example, we model the X-ray flux and index distribution of Mkn 421 obtained from over 9 years of MAXI observations and show that the variability in the X-ray emission is driven by Gaussian fluctuations of the particle acceleration process rather than that of the escape rate., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters, 5 pages, 5 figures

Blazars are a sub-population of quasars whose jets are nearly aligned with the line-of-sight, which tend to exhibit multi-wavelength variability on a variety of timescales. Quasi-periodic variability on year-like timescales has been detected in a number of bright sources, and has been connected to the orbital motion of a putative massive black hole binary. If this were indeed the case, those blazar binaries would contribute to the nanohertz gravitational-wave stochastic background. We test the binary hypothesis for the blazar population observed by the \textit{Fermi} Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, which consists of BL Lacertae objects and flat-spectrum radio quasars. Using mock populations informed by the luminosity functions for BL Lacertae objects and flat-spectrum radio quasars with redshifts $z \le 2$, we calculate the expected gravitational wave background and compare it to recent pulsar timing array upper limits. The two are consistent only if a fraction $\lesssim 10^{-3}$ of blazars hosts a binary with orbital periods $, 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted by MNRAS Letters

We analyse the circular polarization data accumulated in the first 7 years of the Polarimetric Monitoring of Active Galactic Nuclei at MillimetreWavelengths (POLAMI) project introduced in an accompanying paper. In the 3-mm wavelength band, we acquired more than 2600 observations, and all but one of our 37 sample sources were detected, most of them several times. For most sources, the observed distribution of the degree of circular polarization is broader than that of unpolarized calibrators, indicating that weak (≲0.5 per cent) circular polarization is present most of the time. Our detection rate and the maximum degree of polarization found, 2.0 per cent, are comparable to previous surveys, all made at much longer wavelengths. We argue that the process generating circular polarization must not be strongly wavelength dependent, and we propose that the widespread presence of circular polarization in our short wavelength sample dominated by blazars is mostly due to Faraday conversion of the linearly polarized synchrotron radiation in the helical magnetic field of the jet. Circular polarization is variable, most notably on time-scales comparable to or shorter than our median sampling interval of ≲1 month. Longer time-scales of about 1 yr are occasionally detected, but severely limited by the weakness of the signal. At variance with some longer wavelength investigations we find that the sign of circular polarization changes in most sources, while only seven sources, including three already known, have a strong preference for one sign. The degrees of circular and linear polarization do not show any systematic correlation. We do find however one particular event where the two polarization degrees vary in synchronism during a time span of 0.9 yr. This paper also describes a novel method for calibrating the sign of circular polarization observations. © 2016 The Authors., We are grateful to Daniel Homan (Denison University, USA) for valuable comments and for sharing unpublished data, and to Ioannis Myserlis (MPIfR, Germany) for a careful reading of the manuscript. We thank an anonymous referee for insightful and helpful comments. This paper is based on observations carried out with the IRAM 30-m telescope. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany) and IGN (Spain). CT thanks the GILDAS software group, notably Sebastien Bardeau, for competent and rapid support. IA acknowledges support by a Ramon y Cajal grant of the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) of Spain. The research at the IAA-CSIC was supported in part by the MINECO through grants AYA2016-80889-P, AYA2013-40825-P and AYA2010-14844, and by the regional government of Andalucia through grant P09-FQM-4784. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We have also made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System Bibliographic Services.

We report on the first results of the POLAMI (Polarimetric Monitoring of AGNs with Millimetre Wavelengths) programme, a simultaneous 3.5 and 1.3mm full-Stokes-polarization monitoring of a sample of 36 of the brightest active galactic nuclei in the northern sky with the IRAM 30m telescope. Through a systematic statistical study of data taken from 2006 October (from 2009 December for the case of the 1.3mm observations) to 2014 August, we characterize the variability of the total flux density and linear polarization. We find that all sources in the sample are highly variable in total flux density at both 3.5 and 1.3 mm, as well as in spectral index, which (except in particularly prominent flares) is found to be optically thin between these two wavelengths. The total flux-density variability at 1.3mm is found, in general, to be faster, and to have larger fractional amplitude and flatter power-spectral-density slopes than at 3.5 mm. The polarization degree is on average larger at 1.3mm than at 3.5 mm, by a factor of 2.6. The variability of linear polarization degree is faster and has higher fractional amplitude than for total flux density, with the typical time-scales during prominent polarization peaks being significantly faster at 1.3mm than at 3.5 mm. The polarization angle at both 3.5 and 1.3mm is highly variable. Most of the sources show one or two excursions of > 180° on time-scales from a few weeks to about a year during the course of our observations. The 3.5 and 1.3mm polarization angle evolution follows each other rather well, although the 1.3mm data show a clear preference to more prominent variability on the short time-scales, i.e. weeks. The data are compatible with multizone models of conical jets involving smaller emission regions for the shortest-wavelength emitting sites. Such smaller emitting regions should also be more efficient in energising particle populations, as implied by the coherent evolution of the spectral index and the total flux density during flaring activity of strong enough sources. The data also favour the integrated emission at 1.3mm to have better ordered magnetic fields than the one at 3.5 mm © 2016 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society, The authors acknowledge the anonymous referee for his/her constructive and valuable comments on this paper. We gratefully acknowledge Emmanouil Angelakis (MPIfR, Germany) for his careful revision and useful comments to improve this manuscript. This paper is based on observations carried out with the IRAM30m Telescope. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany) and IGN (Spain). IA acknowledges support by a Ramon y Cajal grant of the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) of Spain. The research at the IAA-CSIC was supported in part by the MINECO through grants AYA2016-80889-P, AYA2013-40825-P and AYA2010-14844, and by the regional government of Andalucia through grant P09-FQM-4784. This research has made use of the VLBA-BU-BLAZAR Program data base of 7mm VLBA polarimetric images (Jorstad & Marscher 2016; Jorstad et al. 2017), and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database.

We describe the POLAMI (Polarimetric Monitoring of AGN at Millimetre Wavelengths) programme for the monitoring of all four Stokes parameters of a sample of bright radio-loud active galactic nuclei with the IRAM30-m telescope at 3.5 and 1.3 mm. The programme started in 2006 October and accumulated, until 2014 August, 2300 observations at 3.5 mm, achieving a median time sampling interval of 22 d for the sample of 37 sources. This first paper explains the source selection, mostly blazars, the observing strategy and data calibration and gives the details of the instrumental polarization corrections. The sensitivity (1σ) reached at 3.5mm is 0.5 per cent (linear polarization degree), 4. ° 7 (polarization angle), and 0.23 per cent (circular polarization), while the corresponding values at 1.3mm are 1.7 per cent, 9. ° 9 and 0.72 per cent, respectively. The data quality is demonstrated by the time sequences of our calibrators Mars and Uranus. For the quasar 3C 286, widely used as a linear polarization calibrator, we give improved estimates of its linear polarization, and show for the first time occasional detections of its weak circular polarization, which suggests a small level of variability of the source at millimeter wavelengths., Emmanuel Lellouch (Observatoire de Paris, France) is kindly acknowledged for technical support on the Mars model and its calculations for the time spanned by the POLAMI observations. We gratefully acknowledge Emmanouil Angelakis (MPIfR, Germany) for his careful revision and useful comments to improve this manuscript. We appreciate the support by the operator team of the IRAM 30-m telescope. This paper is based on observations carried out with the IRAM 30-m Telescope and analysed with GILDAS software. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany) and IGN (Spain). IA acknowledges support by a Ramon y Cajal grant of the Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO) of Spain. The research at the IAA-CSIC was supported in part by the MINECO through grants AYA2016-80889-P, AYA2013-40825-P and AYA2010-14844, and by the regional government of Andalucia through grant P09-FQM-4784.

Hard-TeV BL Lacs are a new type of blazars characterized by a hard intrinsic TeV spectrum, locating the peak of their gamma-ray emission in the spectral energy distribution (SED) above 2-10 TeV. Such high energies are problematic for the Compton emission, using a standard one-zone leptonic model. We study six examples of this new type of BL Lacs in the hard X-ray band with the NuSTAR satellite. Together with simultaneous observations with the SWIFT satellite, we fully constrain the peak of the synchrotron emission in their SED, and test the leptonic synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model. We confirm the extreme nature of 5 objects also in the synchrotron emission. We do not find evidence of additional emission components in the hard X-ray band. We find that a one-zone SSC model can in principle reproduce the extreme properties of both peaks in the SED, from X-ray up to TeV energies, but at the cost of i) extreme electron energies with very low radiative efficiency, ii) conditions heavily out of equipartition (by 3 to 5 orders of magnitude), and iii) not accounting for the simultaneous UV data, which then should belong to a different emission component, possibly the same as the far-IR (WISE) data. We find evidence of this separation of the UV and X-ray emission in at least two objects. In any case, the TeV electrons must not "see" the UV or lower-energy photons, even if coming from different zones/populations, or the increased radiative cooling would steepen the VHE spectrum., 13 pages, 2 figures. Version accepted for publication in MNRAS. Fig. 2 corrected for a small plotting error

A small subset of optically selected radio-quiet quasars showing weak or no emission lines may turn out to be the elusive radio-quiet BL Lac objects, or simply be radio-quiet QSOs with a still-forming/shielded broad line region (BLR). High polarisation ($p$ $>$ 3$-$4$\%$), a hallmark of BL Lacs, can be used to test whether some optically selected `radio-quiet weak emission line quasars' (RQWLQs) show a fractional polarisation high enough to qualify as radio-quiet analogs of BL Lac objects. Out of the observed six RQWLQs candidates showing an insignificant proper motion, only two are found to have $p$ $>$ 1$\%$. For these two RQWLQs, namely J142505.59$+$035336.2, J154515.77+003235.2, we found polarisation of 1.03$\pm$0.36$\%$, 1.59$\pm$0.53$\%$ respectively, which again is too modest to justify a (radio-quiet) BL Lac classification. We also present here a statistical comparison of the optical spectral index, for a set of 40 RQWLQs with redshift-luminosity matched control sample of 800 QSOs and an equivalent sample of 120 blazars. The spectral index distribution of RQWLQs is found to differ, at a high significance level, from that of blazars and is consistent with that of the ordinary QSOs. Likewise, a structure-function analysis of photometric light curves presented here suggests that the mechanism driving optical variability in RQWLQs is similar to that operating in QSOs and different from that of blazars. These findings are consistent with the common view that the central engine in RQWLQs, as a population, is akin to that operating in normal QSOs and the primary differences between them might be related to differences in the BLR., 9 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We review the reports of possible year-long quasi-periodicities of BL Lac objects in the γ-ray and optical bands, and present a homogeneous time analysis of the light curves of PKS2155−304, PG1553+113, and BL Lac. Based on results from a survey covering the entire Fermi γ-ray sky we have estimated the fraction of possible quasi-periodic BL Lac objects. We compared the cyclical behaviour in BL Lac objects with that derived from the search of possible optical periodicities in quasars, and find that at z ≲ 1 the cosmic density of quasi-periodic BL Lac objects is larger than that of quasi-periodic quasars. If the BL Lac quasi-periodicities were due to a supermassive binary black hole (SBBH) scenario, there could be a tension with the upper limits on the gravitational wave background measured by the pulsar timing array. The argument clearly indicates the difficulties of generally associating quasi-periodicities of BL Lac objects with SBBHs.

We present long-term optical multi-band photometric monitoring of the blazar OJ 287 from 6 March 2010 to 3 April 2016, with high temporal resolution in the V R I -bands. The flux variations and colour-magnitude variations on long and short timescales were investigated to understand the emission mechanisms. In our observation, the major outbursts occurred in January 2016, as predicted by the binary pair of black holes model for OJ 287, with F v a r of 1.3∼2.1%, and variability amplitude (Amp) of 5.8∼9.0%. The intra-night variability (IDV) durations were from 18.5 to 51.3 min, and the minimal variability timescale was about 4.7 min. The colour-magnitude variation showed a weak positive correlation on the long timescale with Pearson’s r = 0 . 450 , while a negative correlation was found on intra-night timescales. We briefly discuss the possible physical mechanisms that are most likely to be responsible for the observed flux and colour-magnitude correlation variability.

We present optical spectroscopy secured at the 10m Gran Telescopio Canarias of the counterparts of 20 extragalactic gamma-ray sources detected by the Fermi satellite. The observations allow us to investigate the nature of these sources and to determine their redshift. We find that all optical counterparts have a spectrum that is consistent with a BL Lac object nature. We are able to determine the redshift for 11 objects and set spectroscopic redshift limits for five targets. Only for four sources the optical spectrum is found featureless. In the latter cases we can set lower limits on the redshift based on the assumption that they are hosted by a typical massive elliptical galaxy whose spectrum is diluted by the non thermal continuum. The observations allow us to unveil the nature of these gamma-ray sources and provide a sanity check of a tool to discover the counterparts of gamma-ray emitters/blazars based on their multiwavelength emission., 24 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables; accepted for publication in ApJ

The blazar 3C454.3 exhibited a strong flare seen in gamma-rays, X-rays, and optical/NIR bands during 3--12 December 2009. Emission in the V and J bands rose more gradually than did the gamma-rays and soft X-rays, though all peaked at nearly the same time. Optical polarization measurements showed dramatic changes during the flare, with a strong anti-correlation between optical flux and degree of polarization (which rose from ~ 3% to ~ 20%) during the declining phase of the flare. The flare was accompanied by large rapid swings in polarization angle of ~ 170 degree. This combination of behaviors appear to be unique. We have cm-band radio data during the same period but they show no correlation with variations at higher frequencies. Such peculiar behavior may be explained using jet models incorporating fully relativistic effects with a dominant source region moving along a helical path or by a shock-in-jet model incorporating three-dimensional radiation transfer if there is a dominant helical magnetic field. We find that spectral energy distributions at different times during the flare can be fit using modified one-zone models where only the magnetic field strength and particle break frequencies and normalizations need change. An optical spectrum taken at nearly the same time provides an estimate for the central black hole mass of ~ 2.3 * 10^9 M_sun. We also consider two weaker flares seen during the $\sim 200$ d span over which multi-band data are available. In one of them, the V and J bands appear to lead the $\gamma$-ray and X-ray bands by a few days; in the other, all variations are simultaneous., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables; MNRAS in press

The transverse stratification of active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets is suggested by observations and theoretical arguments, as a consequence of intrinsic properties of the central engine (accretion disc + black hole) and external medium. On the other hand, the one-component jet approaches are heavily challenged by the various observed properties of plasmoids in radio jets (knots), often associated with internal shocks. Given that such a transverse stratification plays an important role on the jets acceleration, stability, and interaction with the external medium, it should also induce internal shocks with various strengths and configurations, able to describe the observed knots behaviours. By establishing a relation between the transverse stratification of the jets, the internal shock properties, and the multiple observed AGN jet morphologies and behaviours, our aim is to provide a consistent global scheme of the various AGN jet structures. Working on a large sample of AGN radio jets monitored in very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) by the MOJAVE collaboration, we determined the consistency of a systematic association of the multiple knots with successive re-collimation shocks. We then investigated the re-collimation shock formation and the influence of different transverse stratified structures by parametrically exploring the two relativistic outflow components with the specific relativistic hydrodynamic (SRHD) code AMRVAC. We were able to link the different spectral classes of AGN with specific stratified jet characteristics, in good accordance with their VLBI radio properties and their accretion regimes., 16 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

The existence of "radio weak BL Lac objects" (RWBLs) has been an open question, still unsolved, since the discovery that quasars could be radio-quiet or radio-loud. Recently several groups identified RWBL candidates, mostly found while searching for low energy counterparts of the unidentified/unassociated gamma-ray sources listed in the Fermi catalogs. Confirming RWBLs is a challenging task since they could be confused with white dwarfs (WDs) or weak emission line quasars (WELQs) when there are not sufficient data to precisely draw their broad band spectral energy distribution and their classification is mainly based on a featureless optical spectra. Motivated by the recent discovery that Fermi BL Lacs appear to have very peculiar mid-IR emission, we show that it is possible to distinguish between WDs, WELQs and BL Lacs using the [3.4]-[4.6]-[12]$\mu$m color-color plot built using the WISE magnitudes when the optical spectrum is available. On the basis of this analysis, we identify WISE J064459.38+603131 and WISE J141046.00+740511.2 as the first two genuine RWBLs, both potentially associated with Fermi sources. Finally, to strengthen our identification of these objects as true RWBLs, we present multifrequency observations for these two candidates to show that their spectral behavior is indeed consistent with those of the BL Lac population., Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, ApJ accepted for publication, pre-proof version

In the recently published 3FGL catalogue, the Fermi/LAT collaboration reports the detection of $\gamma$-ray emission from 3034 sources obtained after four years of observations. The nature of 1010 of those sources is unknown, whereas 2023 have well-identified counterparts in other wavelengths. Most of the associated sources are labelled as blazars (1717/2023), but the BL Lacs or FSRQ nature of 573 of these blazars is still undetermined. The aim of this study was two-fold. First, to significantly increase the number of blazar candidates from a search among the large number of Fermi/LAT 3FGL unassociated sources (case A). Second, to determine the BL Lac or FSRQ nature of the blazar candidates, including those determined as such in this work and the blazar candidates of uncertain type (BCU) that are already present in the 3FGL catalogue (case B). For this purpose, multivariate classifiers were trained using samples of labelled sources with no caution flag from the 3FGL catalogue and carefully chosen discriminant parameters. The decisions of the classifiers were combined in order to obtain a high level of source identification along with well controlled numbers of expected false associations. Specifically for case A, dedicated classifications were generated for high and low galactic latitude sources, in addition, the application of classifiers to samples of sources with caution flag was considered separately, and specific performance metrics were estimated. We obtained a sample of 595 blazar candidates among the unassociated sources of the 3FGL catalogue. We also obtained a sample of 509 BL Lacs and 295 FSRQs from the blazar candidates cited above and the BCUs of the 3FGL catalogue. The number of expected false associations is given for different samples of candidates. It is, in particular, notably low ($\sim$9/425) for the sample of high-latitude blazar candidates from case A., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

In 2015 July 29 - September 1 the satellite XMM-Newton pointed at the BL Lac object PG 1553+133 six times, collecting data for 218 hours. During one of these epochs, simultaneous observations by the Swift satellite were requested to compare the results of the X-ray and optical-UV instruments. Optical, near-infrared and radio monitoring was carried out by the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) collaboration for the whole observing season. We here present the results of the analysis of all these data, together with an investigation of the source photometric and polarimetric behaviour over the last three years. The 2015 EPIC spectra show slight curvature and the corresponding light curves display fast X-ray variability with a time scale of the order of 1 hour. In contrast to previous results, during the brightest X-ray states detected in 2015 the simple log-parabolic model that best-fits the XMM-Newton data also reproduces reasonably well the whole synchrotron bump, suggesting a peak in the near-UV band. We found evidence of a wide rotation of the polarization angle in 2014, when the polarization degree was variable, but the flux remained almost constant. This is difficult to interpret with deterministic jet emission models, while it can be easily reproduced by assuming some turbulence of the magnetic field., Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, accepted by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

We present a search for magnetically broadened gamma-ray emission around active galactic nuclei (AGN), using VERITAS observations of seven hard-spectrum blazars. A cascade process occurs when multi-TeV gamma rays from AGN interact with extragalactic background light (EBL) photons to produce electron-positron pairs, which then interact with cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons via inverse-Compton scattering to produce gamma rays. Due to the deflection of the electron-positron pairs, a non-zero intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) would potentially produce detectable effects on the angular distribution of the cascade emission. In particular, an angular broadening compared to the unscattered emission could occur. Through non-detection of angularly broadened emission from 1ES 1218+304, the source with the largest predicted cascade fraction, we exclude a range of IGMF strengths around $10^{-14}$G at the 95% confidence level. The extent of the exclusion range varies with the assumptions made about the intrinsic spectrum of 1ES 1218+304 and the EBL model used in the simulation of the cascade process. All of the sources are used to set limits on the flux due to extended emission., Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal