Broadband Observations of High Redshift Blazars

TL;DR

This study presents multi-wavelength observations of four high-redshift blazars, detecting gamma-ray emission in three, modeling their spectral energy distributions, and analyzing their X-ray properties to understand jet emission and soft X-ray deficits.

Contribution

First detection of gamma-ray emission from CGRaBS J0225+1846 and comprehensive broadband modeling of four high-redshift blazars using simultaneous data.

Findings

Gamma-ray emission detected in CGRaBS J0225+1846 for the first time.

Optical-UV emission explained by accretion disk radiation.

X-ray to gamma-ray emission dominated by inverse Compton scattering.

Abstract

We present a multi-wavelength study of four high redshift blazars, S5 0014+81 ($z=3.37$), CGRaBS J0225+1846 ($z=2.69$), BZQ J1430+4205 ($z=4.72$), and 3FGL J1656.2$-$3303 ($z=2.40$), using the quasi-simultaneous data from {\it Swift}, {\it NuSTAR}, and {\it Fermi}-Large Area Telescope (LAT) and also the archival {\it XMM-Newton} observations. Other than 3FGL J1656.2$-$3303, none of the sources were known as $\gamma$-ray emitters and our analysis of $\sim$7.5 years of LAT data reveals the first time detection of the statistically significant $\gamma$-ray emission from CGRaBS J0225+1846. We generate the broadband spectral energy distributions (SED) of all the objects, centering at the epoch of {\it NuSTAR} observations and reproduce them using a one zone leptonic emission model. The optical$-$UV emission in all the objects can be explained by the radiation from the accretion disk, whereas, X-ray to $\gamma$-ray window of the SEDs are found to be dominated by the inverse Compton scattering off the broad line region photons. All of them host billion solar mass black holes. Comparing the accretion disk luminosity and the jet power of these sources with a large sample of blazars, we find them to occupy high disk luminosity-jet power regime. We also investigate the X-ray spectral properties of the sources in detail with a major focus on studying the causes of soft X-ray deficit, a feature generally seen in high redshift radio-loud quasars. We summarize that this feature could be explained based on the intrinsic curvature in the jet emission rather than due to external effects predicted in the earlier studies, such as host galaxy and/or warm absorption.