# Leptonic Jet Models of Blazars: Broadband Spectra and Spectral Variability

## Introduction

Recent high-energy detections and simultaneous broadband observations of blazars, determining their spectra and spectral variability, are posing strong constraints on currently popular jet models of blazars. 66 blazars have been detected by EGRET at energies above 100 MeV hartman99a , the two nearby high-frequency peaked BL Lac objects (HBLs) Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 are now multiply confirmed sources of multi-GeV – TeV radiation punch92 ; petry96 ; quinn96 ; brad97 , and the TeV detections of PKS 2155-314 chadwick99  and 1ES 2344+514 catanese98  are awaiting confirmation. Most EGRET-detected blazars exhibit rapid variability mukherjee97 , in some cases on intraday and even sub-hour (e. g., gaidos96 ) timescales, where generally the most rapid variations are observed at the highest photon frequencies.

The broadband spectra of blazars consist of at least two clearly distinct spectral components. The first one extends in the case of flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) from radio to optical/UV frequencies, in the case of HBLs up to soft and even hard X-rays, and is consistent with non-thermal synchrotron radiation from ultrarelativistic electrons. The second spectral component emerges at $`\gamma `$-ray energies and peaks at several MeV – a few GeV in most quasars, while in the case of some HBLs the peak of this component appears to be located at TeV energies.

The bolometric luminosity of EGRET-detected quasars and some low-frequency peaked BL Lac objects (LBLs) during flares is dominated by the $`\gamma `$-ray emission. If this emission were isotropic, it would correspond to enormous luminosities (up to $`10^{49}`$ erg s<sup>-1</sup>) which, in combination with the short observed timescales (implying a small size of the emission region) would lead to a strong modification of the emissivity spectra by $`\gamma \gamma `$ absorption, in contradiction to the observed smooth power-laws at EGRET energies. This has motivated the concept of relativistic beaming of radiation emitted by ultrarelativistic particles moving at relativistic bulk speed along a jet (for a review of these arguments, see schlickeiser96 ). While it is generally accepted that blazar emission originates in relativistic jets, the radiation mechanisms responsible for the observed $`\gamma `$ radiation are still under debate. It is not clear yet whether in these jets protons are the primarily accelerated particles, which then produce the $`\gamma `$ radiation via photo-pair and photo-pion production, followed by $`\pi ^0`$ decay and synchrotron emission by secondary particles (e. g., mannheim93 ), or electrons (and positrons) are accelerated directly and produce $`\gamma `$-rays in Compton scattering interactions with the various target photon fields in the jet mg85 ; dermer92 ; sikora94 ; boettcher97 .

In this review, I will describe the current status of blazar models based on leptons (electrons and/or pairs; in the following, the term “electrons” refers to both electrons and positrons) as the primary constituents of the jet which are responsible for the $`\gamma `$-ray emission. Hadronic jet models are discussed in a separate paper by J. Rachen rachen99 . In Section 2, I will give a description of the model and discuss the different $`\gamma `$-ray production mechanisms and their relevance for different blazar classes. In Section 3, I will review recent progress in understanding intrinsic differences between different blazar classes and present state-of-the-art model calculations, using a leptonic jet model, to undermine the general theoretical concept. In Section 4, I will discuss broadband spectral variability of individual blazars and their interpretation in the framework of leptonic jet models. A simple quasi-analytical toy model for blazar broadband spectral variability will be presented in section 5.

## Model description and radiation mechanisms

The basic geometry of leptonic blazar jet models is illustrated in Fig. 1. At the center of the AGN, an accretion disk around a supermassive, probably rotating, black hole is powering a relativistic jet. Along this pre-existing jet structure, occasionally blobs of ultrarelativistic electrons are ejected at relativistic bulk velocity.

The electrons are emitting synchrotron radiation, which will be observable at IR – UV or even X-ray frequencies, and hard X-rays and $`\gamma `$-rays via Compton scattering processes. Possible target photon fields for Compton scattering are the synchrotron photons produced within the jet (the SSC process, mg85 ; maraschi92 ; bloom96 ), the UV – soft X-ray emission from the disk — either entering the jet directly (the ECD \[External Comptonization of Direct disk radiation\] process; dermer92 ; ds93 ) or after reprocessing at the broad line regions or other circumnuclear material (the ECC \[External Comptonization of radiation from Clouds\] process; sikora94 ; bl95 ; dss97 ), or jet synchrotron radiation reflected at the broad line regions (the RSy \[Reflected Synchrotron\] mechanism; gm96 ; bednarek98 ; bd98 ).

The relative importance of these components may be estimated by comparing the energy densities of the respective target photon fields. Denoting by $`u_B^{}`$ the co-moving energy density of the magnetic field, the energy density of the synchrotron radiation field, governing the luminosity of the SSC component, may be estimated by $`u_{sy}^{}u_B^{}\tau _T\gamma _e^2`$, where $`\tau _T=n_{e,B}^{}R_B^{}\sigma _T`$ is the Thomson depth of the relativistic plasma blob and $`\gamma _e`$ is the average Lorentz factor of electrons in the blob. The SSC spectrum exhibits a broad hump without strong spectral break, peaking around $`ϵ_{SSC}(B^{}/B_{cr})D\gamma _e^4ϵ_{sy}\gamma _e^2`$, where $`B^{}`$ is the co-moving magnetic field, $`B_{cr}=4.41410^{13}`$ G, and $`D=\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }[1\beta _\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{cos}\theta _{obs}]\right)^1`$ is the Doppler factor associated with the bulk motion of the blob. Throughout this paper, all photon energies are described by the dimensionless quantity $`ϵ=h\nu /(m_ec^2)`$.

If the blob is sufficiently far from the central engine of the AGN so that the accretion disk can be approximated as a point source of photons, its photon energy density (in the co-moving frame) is $`u_D^{}L_D/(4\pi z^2c\mathrm{\Gamma }^2)`$, where $`L_D`$ is the accretion disk luminosity, and $`z`$ is the height of the blob above the accretion disk. The ECD spectrum can exhibit a strong spectral break, depending on the existence of a low-energy cutoff in the electron distribution function, and peaks at $`ϵ_{ECD}ϵ_D(D/\mathrm{\Gamma })\gamma _e^2`$, where $`ϵ_D`$ is the average photon energy of the accretion disk radiation (typically of order $`10^5`$ for Shakura-Sunyaev type accretion disks shakura73  around black holes of $`10^8`$$`10^{10}M_{}`$).

Part of the accretion disk and the synchrotron radiation will be reprocessed by circumnuclear material in the broad line region and can re-enter the jet. Since this reprocessed radiation is nearly isotropic in the rest-frame of the AGN, it will be strongly blue-shifted into the rest-frame of the relativistically moving plasma blob. Thus, assuming that a fraction $`a_{BLR}`$ of the radiation is rescattered into the jet trajectory, we find for the energy density of rescattered accretion disk photons: $`u_{ECC}^{}L_Da_{BLR}\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/(4\pi r_{BLR}^2c)`$, where $`r_{BLR}`$ is the average distance of the BLR material from the central black hole. The ECC photon spectrum peaks around $`ϵ_{ECC}ϵ_DD\mathrm{\Gamma }\gamma _e^2ϵ_{ECD}\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$.

For the synchrotron mirror mechanism, additional constraints due to light travel time effects need to be taken into account in order to estimate the reflected synchrotron photon energy density (for a detailed discussion see bd98 ), which is well approximated by $`u_{RSy}^{}u_{sy}^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}\mathrm{\Gamma }^3a_{BLR}(R_B^{}/\mathrm{\Delta }r_{BLR})(12\mathrm{\Gamma }R_B^{}/z)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_{BLR}`$ is a measure of the geometrical thickness of the broad line region. Similar to the SSC spectrum, the RSy spectrum does not show a strong spectral break. It peaks around $`ϵ_{RSy}(B^{}/B_{cr})D\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\gamma _e^4ϵ_{SSC}\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$.

## Trends between different blazar classes

There appears to be a more or less continuous sequence in the broadband spectral properties of blazars, ranging from FSRQs over LBLs to HBLs, which was first presented in a systematic way in fossati97 . While in FSRQs the synchrotron and $`\gamma `$-ray peaks are typically located at infrared and MeV – GeV energies, respectively, they are shifted towards higher frequencies in BL Lacs, occurring at medium to even hard X-rays and at multi-GeV – TeV energies in some HBLs. The bolometric luminosity of FSRQs is — at least during $`\gamma `$-ray high states — strongly dominated by the $`\gamma `$-ray emission, while in HBLs the relative power outputs in synchrotron and $`\gamma `$-ray emission are comparable.

Detailed modeling of several blazars has indicated that this sequence appears to be related to the relative contribution of the external Comptonization mechanisms ECD and ECC to the $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum. While most FSRQs are successfully modelled with external Comptonization models (e. g., dss97 ; sambruna97 ; muk99 ; hartman99b ), the broadband spectra of HBLs are consistent with pure SSC models (e. g., mk97 ; pian98 ; petry99 ). BL Lacertae, a LBL, appears to be intermediate between these two extremes, requiring an external Comptonization component to explain the EGRET spectrum madejski99 ; bb99 . Figs. 2 and 3 illustrate detailed modeling results of two objects located at opposite ends of this sequence of blazars, using the jet radiation transfer code described in boettcher97 ; bb99 .

A physical interpretation of this sequence in the framework of a unified jet model for blazars was given in ghisellini98 . Assume that the average energy of electrons, $`\gamma _e`$, is determined by the balance of an energy-independent acceleration rate $`\dot{\gamma }_{acc}`$ and radiative losses, $`\dot{\gamma }_{rad}(4/3)c\sigma _T(u^{}/m_ec^2)\gamma ^2`$, where the target photon density $`u^{}`$ is the sum of the sources intrinsic to the jet, $`u_B^{}+u_{sy}^{}`$ plus external photon sources, $`u_{ECD}^{}+u_{ECC}^{}+u_{RSy}^{}`$. The average electron energy will then be $`\gamma _e(\dot{\gamma }_{acc}/u^{})^{1/2}`$. If one assumes that the properties determining the acceleration rate of relativistic electrons do not vary significantly between different blazar subclasses, then an increasing energy density of the external radiation field will obviously lead to a stronger radiation component due to external Comptonization, but also to a decreasing average electron energy $`\gamma _e`$, implying that the peak frequencies of both spectral components are displaced towards lower frequencies.

## Spectral variability of blazars

Between flaring and non-flaring states, blazars show very distinct spectral variability. Not only does the emission at the highest frequencies generally vary on the shortest time scales, but also the flaring amplitudes are significantly different among different wavelength bands. FSRQs often show spectral hardening of their $`\gamma `$-ray spectra during $`\gamma `$-ray flares (e. g., collmar97 ; hartman96 ; wehrle98 ), and the flaring amplitude in $`\gamma `$-rays is generally larger than in all other wavelength bands. The concept of multi-component $`\gamma `$-ray spectra of quasars, as first suggested for PKS 0528+134 in collmar97 , offers a plausible explanation for this spectral variability due to the different beaming patterns of different radiation mechanisms, as pointed out in dermer95 . This has been applied to PKS 0528+134 in bc98  and muk99 .

The results of muk99  indicate that $`\gamma `$-ray flaring states of PKS 0528+134 are consistent with an increasing bulk Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of ejected jet material, while at the same time the low-energy cutoff $`\gamma _1`$ of the electron distribution injected into the jet is lowered. This is in agreement with the physical picture that due to an increasing $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, the quasi-isotropic external photon field is more strongly Lorentz boosted into the blob rest frame, leading to stronger external Compton losses, implying a lower value of $`\gamma _1`$. The external Compton $`\gamma `$-ray components depend much more strongly on the bulk Lorentz factor than the synchrotron and SSC components do. This leads naturally to a hardening of the $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum, if the SSC mechanisms plays an important or even dominant role in the X-ray — soft $`\gamma `$-ray regime, while external Comptonization is the dominant radiation mechanism at higher $`\gamma `$-ray energies. The results of this study on PKS 0528+134 are discussed in more detail in muk99p .

While this flaring mechanism is plausible for FSRQs, short-timescale, correlated X-ray and $`\gamma `$-ray flares of the HBLs Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 mk97 ; pian98  and synchrotron flares of other HBLs (e. g., PKS 2155-304, georg98 ; kataoka99 ) have been explained successfully in the context of SSC models where flares are related to an increase of the maximum electron energy, $`\gamma _2`$, and a hardening of the electron spectrum. How the spectral evolution in synchrotron flares can be used to constrain the magnetic field and the physics of injection and acceleration of relativistic pairs, has been described in detail in the previous talk by R. Sambruna sambruna99 .

Comparing detailed spectral fits to weekly averaged broadband spectra of Mrk 501 petry99  over a period of 6 months, we have found that TeV and hard X-ray high states on intermediate timescales are consistent with a hardening of the electron spectrum (decreasing spectral index) and an increasing number density of high-energy electrons, while the value of $`\gamma _2`$ has only minor influence on the weekly averaged spectra. Fig. 5 shows how the spectral index of the injected electron distribution and the density of high-energy electrons resulting from our fits are varying in comparison to the RXTE ASM, BATSE, and HEGRA 1.5 TeV light curves. For a more detailed discussion of this analysis see boettcher99 .

These variability studies seem to indicate that due to the different dominant $`\gamma `$ radiation mechanisms in quasars and HBLs also the physics of $`\gamma `$-ray flares and extended high states is considerably different. While in FSRQs the $`\gamma `$-ray emission and its flaring behavior appears to be dominated by conditions of the external radiation field, this influence is unimportant in the case of HBLs where emission lines are very weak or absent, implying that the BLR might be very dilute, leading to a very weak external radiation field, which becomes negligible compared to the synchrotron radiation field intrinsic to the jet.

## A toy model for spectral variability

On the basis of the estimates of the photon energy densities of the various radiation fields and the peak energies of the diverse radiation components given in Section 2, one can develop a very simple, quasi-analytic toy model which allows us to study the influence of parameter variations on the predicted broadband spectrum of a blazar. For construction of this toy model, I assume that the magnetic field within the jet is in equipartition with the ultrarelativistic electrons, and that the light-travel time effects affecting the efficiency of the synchrotron mirror mechanism can be parametrized by a correction factor $`f_{ltt}0.1`$ so that $`u_{RSy}^{}u_{sy}^{}a_{BLR}\mathrm{\Gamma }^3f_{ltt}`$. Then, the entire broadband spectrum, accounting for all synchrotron and inverse-Compton components, is determined by 9 parameters: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, $`\theta _{obs}`$, $`\dot{\gamma }_{acc}`$, $`L_D`$, $`ϵ_D`$, $`a_{BLR}`$, the scale height $`z`$ of energy dissipation in the jet, $`R_B^{}`$, and $`\tau _T`$. In most cases, several of these parameters can be constrained by independent observations. The radiation spectra of each individual component are approximated by double power-laws with a smooth transition.

The thick solid curve in Fig. 6 shows a toy model calculation with the location of peak frequencies and the relative contributions of the $`\gamma `$ radiation components as found in our fits to PKS 0528+134 based on detailed simulations muk99 . The hard X-ray to soft $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum below $`1`$ MeV is dominated by the SSC mechanism, while at higher energies, the ECC mechanism is dominant. The other curves in Fig. 6 indicate the effect of single parameter changes on the broadband spectrum which could be thought of as the cause of flares at $`\gamma `$-ray energies.

From Fig. 6, one can see that an increasing bulk Lorentz factor leads to a strong flare at $`\gamma `$-ray energies, while only moderate flaring at infrared and X-ray frequencies results (dotted curve). A shift of the synchrotron peak towards lower frequencies is predicted boe99b . If the BLR albedo $`a_{BLR}`$ increases (short-dashed curve), the result is a slight increase in the power output at high-energy $`\gamma `$-rays, while due to enhanced external-Compton cooling the flux in the synchrotron and SSC components even decreases. An increased acceleration rate $`\dot{\gamma }_{acc}`$ (long-dashed curve), leads to a strong synchrotron and SSC flare, where the largest variability amplitude is expected at MeV energies, while only moderate variability at higher frequencies is predicted. If the density of relativistic electrons in the blob increases during a flare (dot-dashed curve), the variability amplitude is again predicted to be largest at MeV energies and the peak frequencies of all components are expected to be shifted slightly towards lower frequencies. A decreasing observing angle — which could be a consequence of a bending jet — leads to a shift of the entire broadband spectrum towards higher fluxes and slightly higher peak frequencies.

Obviously, definite conclusions can not be drawn from this simplistic toy-model analysis. However, it may support previous results that an increasing bulk Lorentz factor is a viable and plausible explanation for the spectral variability observed in PKS 0528+134 and possibly also in other FSRQs.

Fig. 7 illustrates the variation of the power output in the different external Compton $`\gamma `$-ray components with respect to the synchrotron component, if $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the only parameter changing during a $`\gamma `$-ray flare. Most notably, a very steep relation between $`\nu F_\nu ^{peak}(sy)`$ and $`\nu F_\nu ^{peak}(ECC)`$ is predicted for values of the Lorentz factor close to the critical $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, at which the observer is looking at the superluminal angle. This dependence can be significantly steeper than quadratic, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu F_\nu ^{peak}(sy)\left[\mathrm{\Delta }\nu F_\nu ^{peak}(ECC)\right]^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha >2`$, which has recently been observed in the prominent 1996 flare of 3C279 wehrle98 .