Interpretation of the flares of M87 at TeV energies in the cloud-jet interaction scenario

TL;DR

This paper models the TeV gamma-ray flares of M87 as resulting from interactions between a gas cloud and the jet, successfully reproducing observed light curves and spectra, and proposing a specific cloud-jet interaction scenario.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cloud-jet interaction model to explain M87's TeV flares, matching observed variability and spectra.

Findings

The model reproduces the April 2010 flare's light curve and spectrum.

A massive gas cloud (~10^29 g) interacting with the jet can explain the observed TeV variability.

The interaction occurs within a few tens of Schwarzschild radii from the black hole.

Abstract

Active galactic nuclei with misaligned jets have been recently established as a class of high-energy gamma-ray sources. M87, a nearby representative of this class, shows fast TeV variability on timescales less than one day. We present calculations performed in the framework of the scenario in which gamma-ray flares in non-blazar active galactic nuclei are produced by a red giant or a gas cloud interacting with the jet. We show that both the light curve and energy spectrum of the spectacular April 2010 flare can be reproduced by this model, assuming that a relatively massive cloud of approx 1.e29 g penetrates into the jet at few tens of Schwarzschild radii from the super-massive black hole.