Radio-optical-gamma-ray properties of MOJAVE AGN detected by Fermi/LAT

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
e-mail: tarshakian@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
² Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory, Byurakan 378433, Armenia and Isaac Newton Institute of Chile, Armenian Branch, Armenia
³ Aalto University Metsähovi Radio Observatory, Metsähovintie 114, 02540 Kylmälä, Finland
e-mail: leon@kurp.hut.fi
⁴ Astrophysical Institute, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA
e-mail: boettchm@ohio.edu
⁵ Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica Óptica y Electrónica, Apartado Postal 51 y 216, 72000 Puebla, Pue, México
e-mail: cjanet@inaoep.mx; vahram@inaoep.mx
⁶ Department of Physics, Purdue University, 525 Northwestern Avenue, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
e-mail: mlister@purdue.edu
⁷ Departament d’Astronomia i Astrofísica, Universitat de València, 46100 Burjassot, Spain
e-mail: eduardo.ros@uv.es

Received: 26 April 2011
Accepted: 19 October 2011

Abstract

Aims. We use a sample of 83 core-dominated active galactic nuclei (AGN) selected from the MOJAVE (Monitoring of Jets in AGN with VLBA Experiments) radio-flux-limited sample and detected with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) to study the relations between non-simultaneous radio, optical, and γ-ray measurements.

Methods. We perform a multi-band statistical analysis to investigate the relations between the emissions in different bands and reproduce these relations by modeling of the spectral energy distributions of blazars.

Results. There is a significant correlation between the γ-ray luminosity and the optical nuclear and radio (15 GHz) luminosities of blazars. We report a well defined positive correlation between the γ-ray luminosity and the radio-optical loudness for quasars and BL Lacertae type objects (BL Lacs). A strong positive correlation is found between the radio luminosity and the γ-ray-optical loudness for quasars, while a negative correlation between the optical luminosity and the γ-ray-radio loudness is present for BL Lacs. Modeling of these correlations with a simple leptonic jet model for blazars indicates that variations of the accretion disk luminosity (and hence the jet power) is able to reproduce the trends observed in most of the correlations. To reproduce all observed correlations, variations of several parameters, such as the accretion power, jet viewing angle, Lorentz factor, and magnetic field of the jet, are required.