Article Dans Une Revue Nature Année : 2022

Polarized blazar X-rays imply particle acceleration in shocks

Ioannis Liodakis (1) , Alan P Marscher (2) , Iván Agudo (3) , Andrei V Berdyugin (4) , Maria I Bernardos (3) , Giacomo Bonnoli (3, 5) , George A Borman (6) , Carolina Casadio (7, 8) , Vı́ctor Casanova (3) , Elisabetta Cavazzuti (9) , Nicole Rodriguez Cavero (10) , Laura Di Gesu (9) , Niccoló Di Lalla (11) , Immacolata Donnarumma (9) , Steven R Ehlert (12) , Manel Errando (10) , Juan Escudero (3) , Maya Garcı́a-Comas (3) , Beatriz Agı́s-González (3) , César Husillos (3) , Jenni Jormanainen (1, 4) , Svetlana G Jorstad (2, 13) , Masato Kagitani (14) , Evgenia N Kopatskaya (13) , Vadim Kravtsov , Henric Krawczynski , Elina Lindfors , Elena G Larionova , Grzegorz M Madejski , Frédéric Marin (15) , Alessandro Marchini (16) , Herman L Marshall (17) , Daria A Morozova , Francesco Massaro (18, 19) , Joseph R Masiero (20) , Dimitri Mawet (20) , Riccardo Middei (9, 21) , Maxwell A Millar-Blanchaer (22) , Ioannis Myserlis (23) , Michela Negro (24, 25) , Kari Nilsson , Stephen L O’dell , Nicola Omodei , Luigi Pacciani (26) , Alessandro Paggi (27) , Georgia V Panopoulou , Abel L Peirson , Matteo Perri , Pierre-Olivier Petrucci (28) , Juri Poutanen (29) , Simonetta Puccetti , Roger W Romani , Takeshi Sakanoi , Sergey S Savchenko (30, 31) , Alfredo Sota , Fabrizio Tavecchio , Samaporn Tinyanont (32) , Andrey A Vasilyev , Zachary R Weaver , Alexey V Zhovtan , Lucio A Antonelli , Matteo Bachetti (33) , Luca Baldini (34, 35) , Wayne H Baumgartner , Ronaldo Bellazzini , Stefano Bianchi (36) , Stephen D Bongiorno , Raffaella Bonino , Alessandro Brez , Niccoló Bucciantini (37, 38, 39) , Fiamma Capitanio , Simone Castellano , Stefano Ciprini (40) , Enrico Costa , Alessandra de Rosa , Ettore del Monte , Alessandro Di Marco , Victor Doroshenko (41) , Michal Dovčiak (42) , Teruaki Enoto (43) , Yuri Evangelista , Sergio Fabiani , Riccardo Ferrazzoli , Javier A Garcia , Shuichi Gunji (44) , Kiyoshi Hayashida (45) , Jeremy Heyl (46) , Wataru Iwakiri (47) , Vladimir Karas , Takao Kitaguchi , Jeffery J Kolodziejczak , Fabio La Monaca , Luca Latronico , Simone Maldera , Alberto Manfreda , Andrea Marinucci , Giorgio Matt , Ikuyuki Mitsuishi (48) , Tsunefumi Mizuno (49) , Fabio Muleri , Null- Y Ng (50) , Chiara Oppedisano , Alessandro Papitto , George G Pavlov (51) , Melissa Pesce-Rollins , Maura Pilia , Andrea Possenti , Brian D Ramsey , John Rankin , Ajay Ratheesh , Carmelo Sgró , Patrick Slane (52) , Paolo Soffitta , Gloria Spandre , Toru Tamagawa , Roberto Taverna (53) , Yuzuru Tawara , Allyn F Tennant , Nicolas E Thomas , Francesco Tombesi (54) , Alessio Trois , Sergey Tsygankov , Roberto Turolla (55) , Jacco Vink (56) , Martin C Weisskopf , Kinwah Wu , Fei Xie (57) , Silvia Zane
1 FINCA - Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO
2 BU - Boston University [Boston]
3 IAA-CSIC - Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía = Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia
4 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Turku]
5 OAB - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera
6 CrAO - Crimean Astrophysical Observatory
7 FORTH - Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas
8 UOC - University of Crete [Heraklion]
9 ASI - Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
10 WUSTL - Washington University in Saint Louis
11 Stanford University
12 MSFC - NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
13 SPbU - St Petersburg State University
14 Tohoku University [Sendai]
15 ObAS - Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg
16 UNISI - Università degli Studi di Siena = University of Siena
17 MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
18 INFN, Sezione di Torino - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Torino
19 UNITO - Università degli studi di Torino = University of Turin
20 CALTECH - California Institute of Technology
21 OAR - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma
22 UC Santa Barbara - University of California [Santa Barbara]
23 IRAM - Instituto de RadioAstronomía Milimétrica
24 CRESST - Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology [GSFC]
25 UMBC - University of Maryland [Baltimore County]
26 INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica [Rome]
27 OATo - INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino
28 IPAG - Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
29 IKI - Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
30 RAS - Russian Academy of Sciences [Moscow]
31 The Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences [Pulkovo]
32 UC Santa Cruz - University of California [Santa Cruz]
33 OAC - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari
34 INFN - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare [Pisa]
35 UniPi - University of Pisa [Italy] = Università di Pisa [Italia] = Université de Pise [Italie]
36 ROMA TRE - Università degli Studi Roma Tre = Roma Tre University
37 OAA - INAF- Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri
38 UniFI - Università degli Studi di Firenze = University of Florence = Université de Florence
39 INFN, Sezione di Firenze - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Firenze
40 INFN, Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata
41 IAAT - Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik [Tübingen]
42 ASU / CAS - Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences
43 RIKEN PRI - RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research
44 Yamagata University
45 UOsaka - The University of Osaka
46 UBC - University of British Columbia [Canada]
47 Chuo University [Tokyo]
48 Nagoya University
49 HU - Hiroshima University
50 HKU - The University of Hong Kong
51 Penn State - Pennsylvania State University [State College, PA]
52 CfA - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
53 Unipd - Università degli Studi di Padova = University of Padua
54 Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata [Roma, Italia] = University of Rome Tor Vergata [Rome, Italy] = Université de Rome Tor Vergata [Rome, Italie]
55 UCL - University College London [UCL]
56 UvA - Universiteit van Amsterdam = University of Amsterdam
57 GXU - Guangxi University [Nanning]
Elisabetta Cavazzuti
Niccoló Di Lalla
Immacolata Donnarumma
Vadim Kravtsov
  • Fonction : Auteur
Henric Krawczynski
Elina Lindfors
  • Fonction : Auteur
Elena G Larionova
Grzegorz M Madejski
  • Fonction : Auteur
Daria A Morozova
  • Fonction : Auteur
Kari Nilsson
  • Fonction : Auteur
Stephen L O’dell
Nicola Omodei
Georgia V Panopoulou
Abel L Peirson
Matteo Perri
Simonetta Puccetti
  • Fonction : Auteur
Roger W Romani
  • Fonction : Auteur
Takeshi Sakanoi
Alfredo Sota
  • Fonction : Auteur
Fabrizio Tavecchio
  • Fonction : Auteur
Andrey A Vasilyev
Zachary R Weaver
Alexey V Zhovtan
  • Fonction : Auteur
Lucio A Antonelli
  • Fonction : Auteur
Wayne H Baumgartner
Ronaldo Bellazzini
  • Fonction : Auteur
Stephen D Bongiorno
  • Fonction : Auteur
Raffaella Bonino
Alessandro Brez
  • Fonction : Auteur
Fiamma Capitanio
  • Fonction : Auteur
Simone Castellano
Enrico Costa
  • Fonction : Auteur
Alessandra de Rosa
  • Fonction : Auteur
Ettore del Monte
  • Fonction : Auteur
Alessandro Di Marco
Yuri Evangelista
Sergio Fabiani
  • Fonction : Auteur
Riccardo Ferrazzoli
Javier A Garcia
  • Fonction : Auteur
Shuichi Gunji
Wataru Iwakiri
Vladimir Karas
Takao Kitaguchi
  • Fonction : Auteur
Jeffery J Kolodziejczak
  • Fonction : Auteur
Fabio La Monaca
Luca Latronico
Simone Maldera
  • Fonction : Auteur
Alberto Manfreda
Andrea Marinucci
  • Fonction : Auteur
Giorgio Matt
Tsunefumi Mizuno
Fabio Muleri
Null- Y Ng
Chiara Oppedisano
  • Fonction : Auteur
Alessandro Papitto
  • Fonction : Auteur
Melissa Pesce-Rollins
  • Fonction : Auteur
Maura Pilia
  • Fonction : Auteur
Andrea Possenti
Brian D Ramsey
  • Fonction : Auteur
John Rankin
Ajay Ratheesh
Carmelo Sgró
Paolo Soffitta
Gloria Spandre
Toru Tamagawa
Yuzuru Tawara
  • Fonction : Auteur
Allyn F Tennant
  • Fonction : Auteur
Nicolas E Thomas
  • Fonction : Auteur
Alessio Trois
Sergey Tsygankov
Martin C Weisskopf
  • Fonction : Auteur
Kinwah Wu
Fei Xie
Silvia Zane

Résumé

Most of the light from blazars, active galactic nuclei with jets of magnetized plasma that point nearly along the line of sight, is produced by high-energy particles, up to around 1 TeV. Although the jets are known to be ultimately powered by a supermassive black hole, how the particles are accelerated to such high energies has been an unanswered question. The process must be related to the magnetic field, which can be probed by observations of the polarization of light from the jets. Measurements of the radio to optical polarization—the only range available until now—probe extended regions of the jet containing particles that left the acceleration site days to years earlier1-3, and hence do not directly explore the acceleration mechanism, as could X-ray measurements. Here we report the detection of X-ray polarization from the blazar Markarian 501 (Mrk 501). We measure an X-ray linear polarization degree ΠX of around 10%, which is a factor of around 2 higher than the value at optical wavelengths, with a polarization angle parallel to the radio jet. This points to a shock front as the source of particle acceleration and also implies that the plasma becomes increasingly turbulent with distance from the shock.

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Commentaire Cet article est en Open access, voir le lien: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/link_gateway/2022Natur.611..677L/doi:10.1038/s41586-022-05338-0

Dates et versions

insu-03885316 , version 1 (07-10-2024)

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Ioannis Liodakis, Alan P Marscher, Iván Agudo, Andrei V Berdyugin, Maria I Bernardos, et al.. Polarized blazar X-rays imply particle acceleration in shocks. Nature, 2022, 611, pp.677-681. ⟨10.1038/s41586-022-05338-0⟩. ⟨insu-03885316⟩
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