A gamma-ray flare from TXS 1508+572: characterizing the jet of a z = 4.31 blazar in the early Universe
| dc.contributor.author | Gokus, Andrea | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Böttcher, Markus | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Errando, Manel | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Kreter, Michael | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Heßdörfer, Jonas | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Eppel, Florian | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Kadler, Matthias | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Smith, Paul S | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Benke, Petra | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Gurvits, Leonid I | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Kraus, Alex | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | McBride, Felicia | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Ros, Eduardo | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Rösch, Florian | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Wilms, Jörn | en.ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Wilms, Jörn | en.ZA |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-10-24T07:40:22Z | en.ZA |
| dc.date.issued | 2024 | en.ZA |
| dc.description | Journal Article, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, Centre for Space Research (CSR)-- Potchefstroom Campus | en.ZA |
| dc.description.abstract | Blazars can be detected from very large distances due to their high luminosity. However, the detection of γ-ray emission of blazars beyond z = 3 has only been confirmed for a small number of sources. Such observations probe the growth of supermassive black holes close to the peak of star formation in the history of galaxy evolution. As a result from a continuous monitoring of a sample of 80 z > 3 blazars with Fermi-LAT, we present the first detection of a γ-ray flare from the z = 4.31 blazar TXS 1508+572. This source showed high γ-ray activity from February to August 2022, reaching a peak luminosity comparable to the most luminous flares ever detected with Fermi-LAT. We conducted a multiwavelength observing campaign involving XMM-Newton, Swift, the Effelsberg 100-m radio telescope and the Very Long Baseline Array. In addition, we make use of the monitoring programs by the Zwicky Transient Facility and NEOWISE at optical and infrared wavelengths, respectively. We find that the source is particularly variable in the infrared band on daily time scales. The spectral energy distribution collected during our campaign is well described by a one-zone leptonic model, with the γ-ray flare originating from an increase of external Compton emission as a result of a fresh injection of accelerated electrons. | en.ZA |
| dc.description.sponsorship | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors express gratitude towards the anonymous referee who gave valuable comments to improve the manuscript. In addition, the authors thank Lea Marcotulli for providing SARA optical photometry measurements that are used for modeling the quiescent state SED, and David J. Thompson for editorial suggestions that improved the manuscript. JH, FE, MK, and FR acknowledge support from the Deutsche Forschungs- gemeinschaft (DFG, grants 447572188, 434448349, 465409577). This publication is part of the M2FINDERS project which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement No 101018682). This research has made use of the XRT Data Analysis Software (XRTDAS) developed under the responsibility of the ASI Science Center (ASDC), Italy. Furthermore, it made use of a collection of ISIS functions (ISISscripts) provided by ECAP/Remeis observatory and MIT (https://www.sternwarte.uni-erlangen.de/isis/). Part of this work is based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and NASA. This publication makes use of data products from the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), which is a joint project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona. NEOWISE is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research is also partly based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48-inch and the 60-inch Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project. ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-2034437 and a collaboration including Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Trinity College Dublin, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and IN2P3, France. Operations are conducted by COO, IPAC, and UW. The ZTF forced-photometry service was funded under the Heising-Simons Foundation grant #12540303 (PI: Graham). In parts, this work is based on observations with the 100-m telescope of the MPIfR (Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie) at Effelsberg. | en.ZA |
| dc.identifier.citation | Böttcher, Markus. et al. 2024. A gamma-ray flare from TXS 1508+572: characterizing the jet of a z = 4.31 blazar in the early Universe. Astrophysical Journal, (2024), Pp 1-19, [https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.07635] | en.ZA |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.07635 | en.ZA |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10394/43741 | en.ZA |
| dc.language.iso | en | en.ZA |
| dc.publisher | Astrophysical Journal | en.ZA |
| dc.subject | Blazars (164) | en.ZA |
| dc.subject | Gamma-Ray Astronomy (628) | en.ZA |
| dc.subject | High-Redshift Galaxies (734) | en.ZA |
| dc.subject | High Energy Astrophysics (739) | en.ZA |
| dc.subject | Relativistic Jets (1390) | en.ZA |
| dc.subject | Radiative Processes (2055) | en.ZA |
| dc.subject | Flatspectrum Radio Quasars (2163) | en.ZA |
| dc.title | A gamma-ray flare from TXS 1508+572: characterizing the jet of a z = 4.31 blazar in the early Universe | en.ZA |
| dc.type | Article | en.ZA |