1. Blazars at the Cosmic Dawn.
- Author
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Paliya, Vaidehi S., Ajello, M., Cao, H.-M., Giroletti, M., Kaur, Amanpreet, Madejski, Greg, Lott, Benoit, and Hartmann, D.
- Subjects
SPECTRAL energy distribution ,BL Lacertae objects ,RADIO jets (Astrophysics) ,X-ray spectra ,SOFT X rays ,ACCRETION disks ,BLACK holes ,QUASARS - Abstract
The uncharted territory of the high-redshift (z ≳ 3) universe holds the key to understanding the evolution of quasars. In an attempt to identify the most extreme members of the quasar population, that is, blazars, we have carried out a multiwavelength study of a large sample of radio-loud quasars beyond z = 3. Our sample consists of nine γ-ray-detected blazars and 133 candidate blazars selected based on the flatness of their soft X-ray spectra (0.3–10 keV photon index ≤1.75), including 15 with Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) observations. The application of the likelihood profile stacking technique reveals that the high-redshift blazars are faint γ-ray emitters with steep spectra. The high-redshift blazars host massive black holes () and luminous accretion disks (erg s
−1 ). Their broadband spectral energy distributions are found to be dominated by high-energy radiation, indicating their jets are among the most luminous ones. Focusing on the sources exhibiting resolved X-ray jets (as observed with the Chandra satellite), we find the bulk Lorentz factor to be larger with respect to other z > 3 blazars, indicating faster moving jets. We conclude that the presented list of high-redshift blazars may act as a reservoir for follow-up observations, such as with NuSTAR, to understand the evolution of relativistic jets at the dawn of the universe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2020
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