Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A New Activity Phase Of The Blazar 3c 454.3 Multifrequency Observations By The Webt And Xmm-Newton In 2007-2008, Niall Smith, Et. Al.

Blackrock Castle Observatory Publications

Aims: The Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) consortium has been monitoring the blazar 3C 454.3 from the radio to the optical bands since 2004 to study its emission variability properties.

Methods: We present and analyse the multifrequency results of the 2007-2008 observing season, including XMM-Newton observations and near-IR spectroscopic monitoring, and compare the recent emission behaviour with the past one. The historical mm light curve is presented here for the first time.

Results: In the optical band we observed a multi-peak outburst in July-August 2007, and other faster events in November 2007-February 2008. During these outburst phases, several episodes of …

Agn Dusty Tori. Ii. Observational Implications Of Clumpiness, Maia Nenkova, Matthew M. Sirocky, Robert Nikutta, Željko Ivezić, Moshe Elitzur

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Clumpy torus models with N₀ ~ 5–15 dusty clouds along radial equatorial rays successfully explain AGN infrared observations. The dust has standard Galactic composition, with individual cloud optical depth τ_V ~ 30–100 at visual. The models naturally explain the observed behavior of the 10 μm silicate feature, in particular the lack of deep absorption features in AGNs of any type, and can reproduce the weak emission feature tentatively detected in type 2 QSOs. The clouds' angular distribution must have a soft edge, e.g., Gaussian, and the radial distribution should decrease as 1/r or 1/r^{2 …}