Blast-Wave Physics Model for Blazars
C. Dermer
M. Boettcher
J. Chiang
Abstract
We apply blast-wave physics, which has been developed to understand
gamma-ray burst
afterglows, to models of the spectral energy distributions of blazars.
Nonthermal
electrons and protons are injected into the comoving plasma frame due either
to interactions
of the jet plasma with the surrounding medium or due to collisions between
two plasmoids
moving with different bulk Lorentz factors. The injected energy comes at the
expense of
the bulk internal motion of the plasma. Simplified analytic forms for the
emission spectra,
including synchrotron self-absorption and Compton processes, are compared
with detailed numerical
simulations. The results are used to model the spectral states observed
from Mrk 501.
File translated from TEX by TTH, version 2.32.
On 16 Jul 1999, 09:19.