Correlation between Fermi/LAT gamma-ray and 37 GHz radio properties of northern AGN averaged over 11 months

TL;DR

This study finds significant correlations between gamma-ray and 37 GHz radio emissions in AGN, suggesting co-spatial production in jets, and highlights differences between BL Lacs and quasars in luminosity and gamma dominance.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis of gamma-ray and radio flux correlations in a large AGN sample using averaged data over 11 months.

Findings

Significant correlation between gamma-ray and radio flux densities and luminosities.

Fermi luminosity inversely correlates with synchrotron peak frequency.

High-energy blazars are more gamma-dominated than low-energy blazars.

Abstract

Although the Fermi mission has increased our knowledge of gamma-ray AGN, many questions remain, such as the site of gamma-ray production, the emission mechanism, and the factors that govern the strength of the emission. Using data from a high radio band, 37 GHz, uncontaminated by other radiation components besides the jet emission, we study these questions with averaged flux densities over the the first year of Fermi operations. We look for possible correlations between the 100 MeV - 100 GeV band used by the Fermi satellite and 37 GHz radio band observed at the Aalto University Metsahovi Radio Telescope, as well as for differences between the gamma-ray emission of different AGN subsamples. We use data averaged over the 1FGL period. Our sample includes 249 northern AGN, including a complete sample of 68 northern AGN with a measured average flux density exceeding 1 Jy. We find significant correlation between both the flux densities and luminosities in gamma and radio bands. The Fermi luminosity is inversely correlated with the peak frequency of the synchrotron component of the AGN spectral energy distributions. We also calculate the gamma dominances, defined as the ratio between the gamma and radio flux densities, and find an indication that high-energy blazars are more gamma-dominated than low-energy blazars. After studying the distributions of gamma and radio luminosities, it is clear that BL Lacertae objects are different from quasars, with significantly lower luminosities. It is unclear whether this is an intrinsic difference, an effect of variable relativistic boosting across the synchrotron peak frequency range, or the result of Fermi being more sensitive to hard spectrum sources like BL Lacertae objects. Our results suggest that the gamma radiation is produced co-spatially with the 37 GHz emission, i.e., in the jet.