Swift for blazars

TL;DR

Swift has significantly advanced blazar research by enabling time domain studies, black hole mass measurements, classification of candidates, and discovery of distant powerful blazars, deepening our understanding of jet physics and black hole growth.

Contribution

This paper reviews recent advances in blazar studies facilitated by Swift, highlighting its role in time domain investigation, black hole mass measurement, and discovery of distant blazars.

Findings

Time domain investigation enabled by Swift.

Black hole mass measurement in powerful blazars.

Discovery of the most powerful distant blazars.

Abstract

I will review recent advances in the field of blazars, highlighting the contribution of Swift. Together with other operating satellites (most notably Fermi, but also AGILE, WISE, Planck) and ground based facilities such as Cherenkov telescopes, Swift was (and is) crucial for improving our understanding of blazars. The main advances in the blazar field made possible by Swift includes the opening of the time domain investigation, since there are several sources with hundreds of simultaneous optical, UV and X-ray data taken at different times; the possibility to measure the black hole mass in very powerful blazars, that show clear signs of accretion disk emission; the possibility to classify blazar candidates, through X-ray observations; the finding of the most powerful and distant blazars, emitting strongly in the hard X-ray band accessible to Swift/BAT. All these improvements had and have a great impact on our understanding on how relativistic jets are formed and emit, on their power, and on how the heavy black holes in these systems first formed and grew.