# Extreme blazars

## 1 Introduction

Although united in a single class because of their similar properties, blazars come in different flavors, according to the strength of their emission lines, the level of their optical polarization and the ratio between their X–ray and radio fluxes. The most important recent realization has been the discovery that blazars are powerful $`\gamma `$–ray emitters: at least during flares, they can emit in this band up to 90% of their bolometric output (von Montigny et al. 1995; Thompson et al. 1995, 1996; Weekes et al. 1996; Petry et al. 1996). Thanks to EGRET, onboard CGRO, and to the impressive improvements of ground based Cherenkov telescopes, we at last know where most of the blazar power is emitted. Rapid variability indicates that the $`\gamma `$–ray and X–ray emitting regions are compact, and this is yet another proof that the bulk of blazar emission is beamed, since otherwise the source would be opaque to $`\gamma `$–rays (see e.g. Dondi & Ghisellini 1995).

On the theoretical side, this discovery led to major improvements in our understandings of blazars physics in particular and how jet must work in general. One important outcome of these studies is the realization that blazars probably form a sequence in their properties. As will be explained in somewhat more detailed below, there is a link between the maximum energy of the emitting electrons and the intrinsic luminosity of the source. Therefore there is a link between the overall spectral energy distribution (SED) and the bolometric luminosity of blazars. Very high energy electrons are present only in low luminosity sources, and these are the ones emitting significantly in the GeV–TeV band. Can even more extreme objects exist?

## 2 The SED of blazars

We now know that the SED of blazars is characterized by two broad peaks, the first in the IR–EUV and sometimes X–ray band, and the second in the MeV–GeV bands. There is almost unanimity about the interpretation of the first peak as due to incoherent synchrotron emission. The only remaining doubt concerns the interpretation of the fast (intraday) radio variability observed in a large fraction (about 1/4) of blazars (Wagner & Witzel 1995). If it is indeed an intrinsic property, and it is not due to interstellar scintillation, then this phenomenon will deeply change the present theoretical “paradigm”, requiring some coherent process to be at work (Benford & Lesh 1998). The origin of the second peak is still uncertain. It can be due to synchrotron Self Compton (SSC: Maraschi, Ghisellini & Celotti 1992; Bloom & Marscher 1996) or a mixture of SSC plus a contribution by inverse Compton scattering off photons produced externally to the jet (EC: Dermer & Schlickeiser 1993; Sikora, Begelman & Rees 1994; Blandford & Levinson 1995, Ghisellini & Madau 1996), or another more energetic synchrotron component (as in the ‘proton blazar’ model by Mannheim 1993).

In this framework, objects presenting extreme properties are the most interesting, since they best constrain our models. In this respect the discovery made by the existing Cherenkov telescopes of TeV emission from blazars is extremely important, and stimulates new and interesting ideas on the physics of relativistic jets. If, as the correlated variability suggests, the TeV flux is produced by the same electrons dominating by synchrotron emission in the X–ray band, then we have a powerful tool to study in detail the acceleration process at its limit.

Even before the advent of EGRET blazars were divided in subclasses according to their (low energy) SED. For instance, BL Lacs discovered through radio and X–ray surveys were recognized to have different radio to X–ray spectra, even if sharing other properties such as the absence of strong emission lines, the rapid and large amplitude variability and the same average X–ray luminosity. This led Maraschi et al. (1986) and Ghisellini & Maraschi (1989) to try to unify these two blazar subclasses assuming that they simply corresponded to a different viewing angle under which we see an accelerating, inhomogeneous jet.

But Giommi & Padovani (1994) later noticed that the SED of radio and X–ray selected BL Lacs showed peaks at different energies, and proposed that this difference was intrinsic, and not due to orientation effects. They then divided BL Lac objects into HBL (high energy peak BL Lac) and LBL (low energy peak BL Lac), the former being sources preferentially selected through X–ray surveys, and the latter through radio surveys. Now we can extend the Giommi & Padovani’s idea of a moving peak also to the high energy part of the SED, since we now know that the two peak energies correlate.

## 3 The blazar sequence

We attempted to find regularities in the SED of blazars by first considering the observational properties of complete samples of sources, and then by modeling the SED of those blazars detected in the $`\gamma `$–ray band, to find their intrinsic physical quantities.

The first attempt was performed by Fossati et al. (1998), considering the SLEW survey of BL Lacs, the 1 Jy sample of BL Lacs and the 2 Jy sample of flat spectrum radio sources, for a total of 126 objects. By collecting data from the literature in selected bands we could construct the SED of these blazars, to look for trends with their bolometric luminosities and/or their classification. To this end we divided all sources in radio luminosity bins (it is thought that the radio power traces the bolometric one, see the discussion in Fossati et al. 1998), averaging the data of the sources belonging to the same luminosity bin. The result is shown in Fig. 1: less powerful objects have the synchrotron peak in the soft-medium X–ray range, while their high energy peak is at the highest $`\gamma `$–ray energies. As the total power increases, both peaks shift to lower frequencies, and at the same time the $`\gamma `$–ray luminosity increases its relative importance, arriving to dominate the bolometric output.

The approach to fit all blazars with some spectral information in the $`\gamma `$–ray band was undertaken by Ghisellini et al. (1998), using an homogeneous EC model (but including the SSC contribution). The main result of this study is the finding of a tight correlation between the Lorentz factor of the electrons emitting at the peaks, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$, and the amount of energy density (both magnetic and radiative) present in the emitting region (see Fig. 2). This in turn correlates with the observed (beamed) luminosity, and the ratio between the power of the Compton and the synchrotron components. What is also remarkable is that different subclasses of blazars occupy different regions of Fig. 2, indicating a well defined blazar sequence:

* Low luminosity lineless BL Lacs (HBL) have large values of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$, synchrotron peak energy in the EUV–soft X–rays and a roughly equally powerful Compton component peaking in the GeV–TeV band.
* LBL are characterized by a greater overall luminosity, a smaller $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$ and peak energies in the optical and GeV band.
* More powerful sources, such as HPQ and LPQ, have the smallest values of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$, peak energies in the mm–far IR and MeV band, a dominating Compton component in which photons produced externally to the jet are more important than the locally produced synchrotron photons.
* There is a correlation between the intrinsic power and the amount of external photons needed to fit the spectra. As shown in Fig. 2, HBL do not need this external photon component, while some LBL do (as BL Lac itself, see also Sambruna et al. 1999).

One can ask what is the physical reason of the found correlations between $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$ and the energy density in the comoving frame of the source, the intrinsic power of the source, and the Compton dominance (i.e. the ratio between the $`\gamma `$–ray and the IR–optical luminosity). One possibility is that there is a competition between the acceleration and the cooling mechanisms in these sources, balancing at $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$. Since we find $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}U^{0.6}`$, where $`U`$ is the sum of the magnetic and radiation energy densities, we have that the synchrotron and inverse Compton cooling rate ($`\gamma ^2U`$) is, at $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$, nearly the same for all sources. This then suggests the presence of some universal acceleration mechanism, independent of $`\gamma `$ and $`U`$: in powerful sources having a large radiation energy density the balance between gain and losses happens at a small value of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$, while in weaker sources this balance is reached at a larger $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$. A problem with this interpretation is the behavior of individual sources, which is sometimes just the opposite: in the 1997 flare of Mkn 501 the bolometric power increased by a factor 20 with respect to the quiescent state, and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$ increased also, by at least a factor $``$10. If the mentioned interpretation is correct, one must assume that during the flare the acceleration rate was much faster than during quiescence, and this contrasts with the supposed “universality” of such mechanism. Further work to solve this discrepancy is needed.

## 4 TeV BL Lacs

At this meeting it was announced that 1ES 1959+658 was detected in the TeV band, bringing the total number of TeV BL Lacs to 5 (the other four are Mkn 421, Punch et al. 1992; Mkn 501, Quinn et al. 1996; 1ES 2344+514, Catanese et al. 1997 and PKS 2155–304, Chadwick et al. 1998). The SED of these 5 sources are shown in Fig. 4. As can be seen their SED is very similar, but note that Mkn 421 and PKS 2155–304 have always shown a $`steep`$ ($`\alpha _x1.5`$) X–ray spectrum, while the X–ray slopes of Mkn 501 and 1ES 2344+514, during flares, are flat ($`\alpha _x<1`$), making the synchrotron emission to peak in the very hard X–ray range (Pian et al. 1998; Giommi, Padovani & Perlman, 1998).

## 5 More extreme BL Lacs

It takes a little leap of imagination to suggest that the blazar sequence extends somewhat more than what already discovered by the recent high energy observations. Here I propose that a new subclass of BL Lac objects can exist, with lower luminosity and larger $`\gamma _{peak}`$ than those HBL already detected at high energies. To explore this possibility, we must first ask:

* Why have we not yet detected these extreme objects? Alternatively: is it possible that we already detected them in some bands, but we do not yet know their extreme nature because of lack of information, such as the X–ray slope and/or the $`\gamma `$–ray flux?
* What limits the maximum electron energies?

### 5.1 Limits on the maximum electron energy: shocks

In strong shocks, electrons can be accelerated efficiently up to the energy where their gains equals their energy losses, which in our case are mainly due to radiation losses. Assuming, as Guilbert, Fabian & Rees (1983), that at each gyroradius the electrons increase their energy by a factor $`\gamma `$, and that the radiative losses are dominated by the synchrotron process, it can be derived that the maximum obtainable $`\gamma B^{1/2}`$, where $`B`$ is the magnetic field. This in turn translates in a maximum synchrotron frequency of $``$70 MeV, independent of the magnetic field. This frequency is then blueshifted by the Doppler factor $`\delta `$, yielding an observable maximum frequency of $`700(\delta /10)`$ MeV. These values are within the EGRET band, but EGRET did not detect any extraordinary blazar whose synchrotron spectrum extends to such large energies. It is therefore unlikely that BL Lacs have synchrotron spectra reaching energies greater than $``$100 MeV. There must then be a more severe limit to the maximum observable synchrotron frequency.

### 5.2 Global energetics

Indeed, another limit can be obtained from the global energetics of jets. The argument is as follows: From the observed extended emission of radio sources we know that at least $`10^{45}`$$`10^{47}`$ erg s<sup>-1</sup> must be transported from the black hole to hundreds of kpc, in the form of Poynting flux and/or bulk kinetic energy of the particles (e.g. Rawlings & Saunders 1991). A fraction of this power can be dissipated into radiation along the way, and one of the main result of EGRET is to have demonstrated that the larger dissipation occurs in a well defined part of the jet (see Ghisellini and Madau 1996 for a more detailed discussion). In steady state, the power dissipated into radiation cannot exceed the power transported by the jet. Since the synchrotron and inverse Compton losses are $`\gamma ^2`$, there is an upper limit to $`<\gamma ^2>`$, corresponding to complete dissipation.

To be more quantitative, let us define $`L_\mathrm{k}`$ and $`L_\mathrm{B}`$ as the power of bulk kinetic motion of the emitting plasma and of Poynting flux, respectively (see e.g. Celotti & Fabian 1993, Ghisellini & Celotti 1998):

$$L_\mathrm{k}=\pi R^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\beta cn^{}m_\mathrm{e}c^2(<\gamma >+m_\mathrm{p}/m_\mathrm{e})$$
(1)   
$$L_\mathrm{B}=\frac{1}{8}R^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\beta cB^2,$$
(2)   
where $`R`$ is the cross sectional radius of the jet, $`n^{}=n/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the comoving particle density of average energy $`<\gamma >m_\mathrm{e}c^2`$, and $`m_\mathrm{p}`$, $`m_\mathrm{e}`$ are the proton and electron rest masses, respectively. An electron proton plasma is assumed. The synchrotron intrinsic power is

$$L_\mathrm{s}^{}=Volumen^{}(\gamma )\dot{\gamma }_\mathrm{s}m_\mathrm{e}c^2𝑑\gamma =\frac{2}{9}R^3\sigma _\mathrm{T}cn^{}B^2<\gamma ^2>$$
(3)   
where $`\dot{\gamma }_\mathrm{s}`$ is the synchrotron cooling rate, and $`n^{}(\gamma )\gamma ^p`$ between $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$. We assume that all electrons partecipating in the bulk flow are accelerated to random energies $`\gamma m_ec^2`$ (i.e. the density $`n^{}`$ in eq. 1 and 3 is the same). For a viewing angle $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, the luminosity calculated assuming isotropy is related to $`L_\mathrm{s}^{}`$ by $`L_{\mathrm{s},\mathrm{obs}}=\mathrm{\Gamma }^4L_\mathrm{s}^{}`$. The intrinsic power emitted over the entire solid angle equals $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^2L_\mathrm{s}^{}`$. We can then relate the synchrotron power $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^2L_\mathrm{s}^{}`$ to $`L_\mathrm{k}`$ (which is proportional to $`n^{}`$) and $`L_\mathrm{B}`$ (which is proportional to the magnetic energy density $`U_\mathrm{B}`$), obtaining

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^2L_\mathrm{s}^{}=\frac{16\sigma _\mathrm{T}L_\mathrm{k}L_\mathrm{B}}{9\pi Rm_\mathrm{e}c^3\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}\frac{<\gamma ^2>}{<\gamma >+m_\mathrm{p}/m_\mathrm{e}}=\frac{2\sigma _\mathrm{T}L_\mathrm{k}B^2R}{9\pi m_\mathrm{e}c^2}\frac{<\gamma ^2>}{<\gamma >+m_\mathrm{p}/m_\mathrm{e}}$$
(4)   
Requiring $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^2L_\mathrm{s}^{}<L_\mathrm{k}`$ implies:

$$\frac{<\gamma ^2>}{<\gamma >+m_\mathrm{p}/m_\mathrm{e}}<\frac{9\pi }{16}\frac{Rm_\mathrm{e}c^3\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}{\sigma _\mathrm{T}L_\mathrm{B}}=\frac{2\pi }{16}\frac{m_\mathrm{e}c^2}{\sigma _\mathrm{T}RB^2}$$
(5)   
Assuming a given particle energy distribution $`n^{}(\gamma )`$ allows to calculate the left hand side of eq. (5) and therefore to derive a limit for $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$. For instance, $`n^{}(\gamma )\gamma ^2`$ between $`\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}<m_\mathrm{p}/m_\mathrm{e}`$ and $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$ yields

$$\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}<\frac{9\pi }{2\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}}\frac{m_\mathrm{p}c^2}{\sigma _\mathrm{T}B^2}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3.2}\times 10^6\frac{1}{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}R_{16}B^2}$$
(6)   
Here the notation $`Q=10^xQ_x`$ is used, with cgs units. The observed synchrotron peak frequency $`\nu _{\mathrm{peak}}=3.7\times 10^6\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}^2B\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ Hz corresponds to

$$\nu _{\mathrm{peak}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.6}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1}{\gamma _{\mathrm{min}}^2R_{16}^2B^3}\mathrm{MeV}$$
(7)   
If the synchrotron power $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^2L_s^{}`$ is of the same order of $`L_\mathrm{B}`$ and $`L_\mathrm{k}`$, we obtain the scaling of $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}`$ and $`\nu _{\mathrm{peak}}`$ with the intrinsic synchrotron power: $`\gamma _{\mathrm{peak}}(L_s^{})^1`$ and $`\nu _{\mathrm{peak}}(L_s^{})^{3/2}`$. Only the less powerful sources can have their high energy peak above the TeV band.

## 6 The predicted TeV flux of extreme BL Lacs

Given the scaling just obtained, we can easily calculate the predicted spectrum of an homogeneous source, in which the particle distribution is the result of continuous injection and radiative cooling. The main uncertainty in this is the amount of soft photons used as seeds for the Compton scattering process. Since BL Lacs, especially HBL, have very weak lines and no signs of thermal emission (i.e. the blue bump), it is natural to assume, for these sources, that a pure SSC model applies. However, it not easy with pure SSC to fit the spectrum of Mkn 501 during the 1997 flare and at the same time to account for the similar amplitude variability of the synchrotron X–rays and the Compton $`\gamma `$–rays. This is because the observed flattening of the X–ray spectrum for brighter states, if extrapolated towards lower frequencies, constrains the pure SSC model to underpredict the IR flux, and more severely so for brighter states. This implies that although the number of high energy electrons increases during high states, the number of IR photons, which are the seeds for the Compton process, decreases. As a result the TeV flux is predicted to vary much less than observed. This can be “cured” either by:

* assuming that the particle distribution is not the result of continuous injection and cooling. For instance, the injection can be impulsive, with the high energy synchrotron flux strictly following the injection phases, while at lower energies, where the cooling time is longer, the particle can accumulate and be considered the result of an “average” (over time) injection.
* assuming that the active region containing the most energetic electrons is embedded in a larger region (i.e. a contiguous part of the jet) which is much more steady, and that contributes substantially to the radiation energy density in the IR. Also this radiation is beamed with the same Doppler factor, since it is produced by the jet.

In both cases the result is that in the active region there is a population of more steady IR photons contributing to the scattering. In these conditions the hard X–rays and the TeV flux vary together with the same amplitude, as observed. Since this case is somewhat different both from the pure SSC scenario and from the EC case, I will called it “ambient” photon model. The level of the Compton emission is larger than in the pure SSC case, since we have an extra contribution to the seed photons. This can be seen in Fig. 5, where I made the comparison between pure SSC and the “ambient” photon case, assuming that the extra IR photons account for the observed IR flux (see also Ghisellini 1998).

Fig. 6 shows some models along these lines. These are SSC plus “ambient” photon models in which the maximum electron energies increases $`1/L_s^{}`$. Note that in the radio band these models severely underestimate the observed flux, since the radiaiton is self absorbed at high radio frequencies in these compact regions. Additional components must be present in the source, to account for the radio emission. We can, very roughly, estimate the level of the flux in the radio band in the following way: i) extrapolate the thin synchrotron power law of the model fitting Mkn 501 towards low frequencies, obtaining a factor 10 of discrepancy between the extrapolation and the data; ii) do the same extrapolation with the other curves, and multiply the extrapolated flux by the same factor 10.

## 7 Where are very extreme BL Lacs?

Fig. 6 reports for illustration the level of radio flux of 10 mJy at 5 GHz, appropriate for the large area deep radio survey, and the flux of $`5\times 10^{12}`$ erg cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup> in X–rays, which is approximately the level of the SLEW survey (Perlman et al. 1996). It can be seen that objects like Mkn 501 could have been detected in existing large area X–ray survey (i.e. the ROSAT RASS), even if they lye at a redshift of 0.1 (i.e. 3 times more distant than Mkn 501). In this case the host galaxy contributes in the optical band as in Mkn 501, and these objects can be easily classified as BL Lacs. In the RASS (and possibly SLEW) survey there can therefore exist extreme BL Lacs. However, for the majority of these already detected and classified objects we only know the radio, optical and X–ray fluxes. It is therefore interesting to find a tool able to recognize extreme BL Lacs only on the basis of these fluxes and the corresponding broad band spectral indices, as done e.g. by Fossati (1998). Using this this tool we have selected a handful of BL Lac objects to be observed with BeppoSAX (0120+340, 0224+014, 0120+340, 0548–322, 1101–232, 1320+084, 1426+428, 2005–489, 2356-309): if their X–ray spectral index will turn out to be flat ($`\alpha _x<1`$), this would guarantee that their synchrotron spectrum peaks at high energies, and hence they would be good candidates for detection in the TeV band.

Decreasing the intrinsic power still further, we may find objects whose synchrotron peak is at energies even higher. In the soft X–ray range, the reduced flux could let these objects escape detection in large area X–ray surveys. In the radio, the flux can be below the $``$10 mJy level. Furthermore, even if detected in X–ray surveys, it may be difficult to classify these objects as BL Lacs, because in the optical the contrast between the galaxy and the non–thermal emission is reduced. It may be that the easiest way to find them is through MeV and TeV surveys. VERITAS can therefore play a crucial role in this respect, finding conspicuous TeV sources that look like normal elliptical galaxies in other bands.

How many of these sources do we expect? Since they are intrinsically weak BL Lacs, one expects to have a lot of them. The exact answer however depends on the lower end of the BL Lac luminosity function (which is still unknown), where these extreme sources are predicted to be. One can find a solid upper limit to the number of these sources by requiring that their MeV emission does not overproduce the MeV $`\gamma `$–ray background (Ghisellini et al., in preparation).

## 8 Conclusions

The blazar sequence discussed in this paper suggests a key role for future, more sensitive Cherenkov detectors, such as VERITAS. The most extreme (i.e. emitting at the higher energies) sources should in fact be the intrinsically weakest, therefore the most numerous. There is the possibility that a new subclass of BL Lacs exists, whose synchrotron spectrum peaks in the MeV band and whose Compton spectrum peaks at or even above one TeV, and whose existence may be discovered by instruments like VERITAS, in the TeV band, or like INTEGRAL, in the MeV band.

Very extreme BL Lacs may be the sources where the dissipation of the power carried by the jet is the most efficient, and where we can study the acceleration mechanism at its limit. If they exist, and if they can be detected, they will be very useful for the determination of the IR background: since their peak is above one TeV, it will be much less ambiguous to disentangle the effect of photon–photon absorption from the intrinsic curvature of the spectrum.

Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to thank Annalisa Celotti and Laura Maraschi for constant help and for years of fruitful discussions