Modeling the Broadband Emission of 3C 454.3

TL;DR

This study presents a comprehensive multiwavelength analysis of the quasar 3C 454.3, revealing detailed emission behaviors during flares and constraining jet emission mechanisms through extensive spectral modeling.

Contribution

It provides the first extensive modeling of 362 quasi-simultaneous SEDs of 3C 454.3 over a decade, elucidating jet physics and emission region dynamics during flares.

Findings

Peak gamma-ray flux reached 2.15×10^50 erg/s.

X-ray flux increased up to 1.80×10^-10 erg/cm^2/s during flares.

Doppler factor increased during flares, indicating faster jet regions.

Abstract

The results of a long-term multiwavelength study of the powerful flat spectrum radio quasar 3C 454.3 using {\it Fermi}-LAT and Swift XRT/UVOT data are reported. In the $\gamma$-ray band, {\it Fermi}-LAT observations show several major flares when the source flux was $>10^{-5}\:{\rm photon\:cm^{-2}\:s^{-1}}$; the peak $\gamma$-ray flux above $141.6$ MeV, $(9.22\pm1.96)\times10^{-5}\:{\rm photon\:cm^{-2}\:s^{-1}}$ observed on MJD 55519.33, corresponds to $2.15\times10^{50}\:{\rm erg\:s^{-1}}$ isotropic $\gamma$-ray luminosity. The analysis of Swift XRT and UVOT data revealed a flux increase, although with smaller amplitudes, also in the X-ray and optical/UV bands. The X-ray emission of 3C 454.3 is with a hard spectral index of $\Gamma_{\rm X}=1.16-1.75$, and the flux in the flaring states increased up to $(1.80\pm0.18)\times10^{-10}{\rm erg\:cm^{-2}\: s^{-1}}$. Through combining the analyzed data, it was possible to assemble 362 high-quality and quasi-simultaneous spectral energy distributions of 3C 454.3 in 2008-2018 which all were modeled within a one-zone leptonic scenario assuming the emission region is within the broad line region, involving synchrotron, synchrotron self-Compton and external Compton mechanisms. Such an extensive modeling is the key for constraining the underlying emission mechanisms in the 3C 454.3 jet and allows to derive the physical parameters of the jet and investigate their evolution in time. The modeling suggests that during the flares, along with the variation of emitting electron parameters, the Doppler boosting factor increased substantially implying that the emission in these periods has most likely originated in a faster moving region.