CORRELATIONS AMONG THE JET, ACCRETION DISK, AND BROAD-LINE REGION OF FLAT SPECTRUM RADIO QUASARS

Jin Zhang, Zi Wei Xue, Jian Jian He, En Wei Liang, Shuang Nan Zhang

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49 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

On the basis of the spectral energy distribution fits and emission line fluxes of 18 GeV flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), we calculate their jet power (Pjet), disk luminosity (Ldisk), and broad-line region luminosity (LBLR). No correlation between Pjet with either Ldisk or LBLR is found, but LBLR is strongly correlated with Ldisk. On average, the broad-line region (BLR) covering factors of GeV-FSRQs in our sample are smaller than those of large samples of quasars. Pjet of some GeV-FSRQs are higher than their Ldisk, but all of them are lower than the accretion power of black holes (BHs), which is estimated by Mc2 = Ldisk/0.1, indicating that the total accretion power of BHs is sufficient to drive the jets in these sources; however, lack of correlation between Ldisk and Pjet of the GeV-FSRQs may suggest that their jets are launched by the Blandford-Znajek process via extracting the rotational energy of BHs. Using the LBLR-Ldisk relation of the GeV-FSRQs, we estimate Ldisk of a BL Lac sample with their LBLR. A comparison of LBLR and the Eddington ratio (Ldisk/LEdd) among BL Lacs, very radio-loud NLS1 galaxies, and FSRQs is also presented. It is found that along with the BL Lac-NLS1-FSRQ sequence LBLR and Ldisk/LEdd increase, which may correspond to the change of the accretion disk structure and the transformation of the dominant mechanism for jet launching. This is also consistent with the division of blazar parent populations, i.e., low/high-excitation radio galaxies.

Original languageEnglish
Article number51
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume807
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • BL Lacertae objects: general
  • accretion, accretion disks
  • galaxies: Seyfert
  • galaxies: jets
  • quasars: general

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