Awakening of the High-Redshift Blazar CGRaBS J0809+5341

Creators: Paliya, Vaidehi S.; Parker, M. L.; Stalin, C. S.; Fabian, A. C.; Ramya, S.; Covino, S.; Tagliaferri, G.; Sahayanathan, S.; Ravikumar, C. D.

Abstract

CGRaBS J0809+5341, a high-redshift blazar at z = 2.144, underwent a giant optical outburst on 2014 April 19 when it brightened by ~5 mag and reached an unfiltered apparent magnitude of 15.7 mag. This implies an absolute magnitude of −30.5 mag, making it one of the brightest quasars in the universe. This optical flaring triggered us to carry out observations during the decaying part of the flare covering a wide energy range using the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, Swift, and ground-based optical facilities. For the first time, the source is detected in γ-rays by the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. A high optical polarization of ~10% is also observed. Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectrum, the accretion disk luminosity and black hole mass are estimated as 1.5 × 10^(45) erg s^(−1) and 10^(8.4) M_⊙, respectively. Using a single zone leptonic emission model, we reproduce the spectral energy distribution of the source during the flaring activity. This analysis suggests that the emission region is probably located outside the broad-line region, and the jet becomes radiatively efficient. We also show that the overall properties of CGRaBS J0809+5341 seem to not be in agreement with the general properties observed in high-redshift blazars up to now.

Additional Information

© 2015. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2014 October 14, accepted for publication 2015 February 19 Published 2015 April 22. We thank the referee for a constructive report that improved the manuscript significantly. We are thankful to the Swift PI for accepting the ToO request and the Swift operation duty scientist for quickly scheduling the observations. We also thank the NuSTAR PI for approving the request of observation. V.S.P. is grateful to the MASTER-Tunka team for providing optical images of the source. This research has made use of the data obtained from HEASARC provided by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Part of this work is based on archival data, software, or online services provided by the ASI Science Data Center (ASDC). This research has made use of the XRT Data Analysis Software (XRTDAS) developed under the responsibility of the ASDC, Italy. This research has also made use of the NuSTAR Data Analysis Software (NuSTARDAS) jointly developed by the ASI Science Data Center (ASDC, Italy) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, USA). Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SDSS-III web site is http://www.sdss3.org/. SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS-III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, Harvard University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University. Use of the Hydra cluster at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics is acknowledged. S.R. acknowledges the support of National Natural Science Foundation of China grant No. 11450110401.

Attached Files

Published - 0004-637X_803_2_112.pdf

Files

0004-637X_803_2_112.pdf

Files (1.1 MB)

Name	Size	Download all
0004-637X_803_2_112.pdf md5:54eb2383bd7ff54e4a3acb226105df4a	1.1 MB	Preview Download

Additional details

	All versions	This version
Views	0	0
Downloads	0	0
Data volume	0 Bytes	0 Bytes