Ruling out IC/CMB X-rays in PKS 0637-752 and the Implications for TeV Emission from Large-Scale Quasar Jets

TL;DR

This study rules out the IC/CMB model as the source of X-ray emission in quasar jets using Fermi gamma-ray data, impacting theories on jet composition and TeV emission predictions.

Contribution

It provides observational constraints that challenge the IC/CMB explanation for X-ray emission in large-scale quasar jets, refining jet emission models.

Findings

IC/CMB model is ruled out for PKS 0637-752 based on Fermi data.

Upper limits on Doppler factors for jet knots are established.

High synchrotron X-ray emission implies detectable TeV emission levels.

Abstract

The Chandra X-ray observatory has discovered dozens of resolved, kiloparsec-scale jets associated with powerful quasars in which the X-ray fluxes are observed to be much higher than the expected level based on the radio-optical synchrotron spectrum. The most popular explanation for the anomalously high and hard X-ray fluxes is that these jets do not decelerate significantly by the kiloparsec scale, but rather remain highly relativistic (Lorentz factors $\Gamma\approx$10). By adopting a small angle to the line-of-sight, the X-rays can thus be explained by inverse Compton upscattering of CMB photons (IC/CMB), where the observed emission is strongly Doppler boosted. Using over six years of Fermi monitoring data, we show that the expected hard, steady gamma-ray emission implied by the IC/CMB model is not seen in PKS 0637-752, the prototype jet for which this model was first proposed. IC/CMB emission is thus ruled out as the source of the X-rays, joining recent results for the jets in 3C 273 (using the same method; Meyer et al. 2014) and PKS 1136-135 (using UV polarization; Cara et al., 2013). We further show that the Fermi observations give an upper limit of $\delta<$6.5 for the four brightest X-ray knots of PKS 0637-752, and derive an updated limit of $\delta<$7.8 for knots A and B1 of 3C 273 (assuming equipartition). Finally, we discuss the fact that high levels of synchrotron X-ray emission in a slow jet will unavoidably lead to a level of angle-integrated TeV emission which exceeds that of the TeV BL Lac class.