Understanding the broad-band emission process of 3C 279 through long term spectral analysis

The long term broad-band spectral study of Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars during different flux states has the potential to infer the emission mechanisms and the cause of spectral variations. To scrutinize this, we performed a detailed broad-band spectral analysis of 3C 279 using simultaneous Swift-XRT/UVOT and Fermi-LAT observations spanning from 2008 August to 2022 June. We also supplement this with the simultaneous NuSTAR observations of the source. The optical/UV, X-ray, and gamma-ray spectra were individually fitted by a power law to study the long term variation in the flux and the spectral indices. A combined spectral fit of simultaneous optical/UV and X-ray spectra was also performed to obtain the transition energy at which the spectral energy distribution is minimum. The correlation analysis suggests that the long term spectral variations of the source are mainly associated with the variations in the low energy index and the break energy of the broken power-law electron distribution which is responsible for the broad-band emission. The flux distribution of the source represents a lognormal variability while the gamma-ray flux distribution showed a clear double lognormal behaviour. The spectral index distributions were again normal except for gamma-ray which showed a double-Gaussian behaviour. This indicates that the lognormal variability of the source may be associated with the normal variations in the spectral index. The broad-band spectral fit of the source using synchrotron and inverse Compton processes indicates different emission processes are active at optical/UV, X-ray, and gamma-ray energies.

Automated summary

The broad-band spectral analysis of Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars provides insights into the emission mechanisms and spectral variations. In this study, simultaneous observations from Swift-XRT/UVOT, Fermi-LAT, and NuSTAR were used to analyze the long-term spectral variation of 3C 279. The results suggest that the spectral variations are primarily influenced by changes in the low energy index and the broken power-law electron distribution. The lognormal variability of the source is associated with the normal variations in the spectral index.