Determining the origin of the X-ray emission in blazars through multiwavelength polarization
Ioannis Liodakis, H. C. Zhang, Stella Boula, R. Middei, Jorge Otero-Santos, D. Blinov, I. Agudo, Markus Boettcher, Chien‐Ting Chen, Steven R. Ehlert, Svetlana G. Jorstad, P. Kaaret, H. Krawczynski, Abel L. Peirson, Roger W. Romani, F. Tavecchio, Martin C. Weisskopf, Pouya M. Kouch, E. Lindfors, K. Nilsson, Callum McCall, Helen Jermak, I. A. Steele, I. Myserlis, Mark Gurwell, Garrett K. Keating, Ramprasad Rao, Sincheol Kang, Sang-Sung Lee, Sang-Hyun Kim, Whee Yeon Cheong, Hyeon‐Woo Jeong, E. Angelakis, A. Kraus, F. J. Aceituno, G. Bonnoli, V. Casanova, Juan Escudero, Beatriz Agı́s-González, Daniel Morcuende, A. Sota, R. Bachev, T. S. Grishina, E. N. Kopatskaya, Е. Г. Ларионова, D. A. Morozova, С. С. Савченко, Ekaterina V. Shishkina, I. S. Troitskiy, Yu. V. Troitskaya, A. A. Vasilyev
Abstract
The origin of the high-energy emission in astrophysical jets from black holes is a highly debated issue. This is particularly true for jets from supermassive black holes, which are among the most powerful particle accelerators in the Universe. So far, the addition of new observations and new messengers have only managed to create more questions than answers. However, the newly available X-ray polarization observations promise to finally distinguish between emission models. We use extensive multiwavelength and polarization campaigns as well as state-of-the-art polarized spectral energy distribution models to attack this problem by focusing on two X-ray polarization observations of blazar BL Lacertae in flaring and quiescent γ -ray states. We find that, regardless of the jet composition and underlying emission model, inverse-Compton scattering from relativistic electrons dominates at X-ray energies.