Intrinsic brightness temperatures of blazar jets at 15 GHz

¹ California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
² University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
³ Denison University, Granville, OH, USA
⁴ University of Turku, Piikkiö, Finland
⁵ Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
⁶ National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, NM, USA

^a e-mail: thovatta@caltech.edu

Published online: 9 December 2013

Abstract

We have developed a new Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to deconvolve light curves of blazars into individual flares, including proper estimation of the fit errors. We use the method to fit 15GHzlight curves obtained within the OVRO 40-m blazar monitoring program where a large number of AGN have been monitored since 2008 in support of the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope mission. The time scales obtained from the fitted models are used to calculate the variability brightness temperature of the sources. Additionally, we have calculated brightness temperatures of a sample of these objects using Very Long Baseline Array data from the MOJAVE survey. Combining these two data sets enables us to study the intrinsic brightness temperature distribution in these blazars at 15 GHz. Our preliminary results indicate that the mean intrinsic brightness temperature in a sample of 14 sources is near the equipartition brightness temperature of ~ 10¹¹K.