X-Ray Polarization Observations of BL Lacertae

Riccardo Middei; Ioannis Liodakis; Matteo Perri; Simonetta Puccetti; Elisabetta Cavazzuti; Laura Di Gesu; Steven R. Ehlert; Grzegorz Madejski; Alan P. Marscher; Herman L. Marshall; Fabio Muleri; Michela Negro; Svetlana G. Jorstad; Beatriz Agís-González; Iván Agudo; Giacomo Bonnoli; Víctor Casanova; Maya García-Comas; César Husillos; Alessandro Marchini; Alfredo Sota; Pouya M. Kouch; Maria I. Bernardos; Elina Lindfors; George A. Borman; Evgenia N. Kopatskaya; Elena G. Larionova; Daria A. Morozova; Sergey S. Savchenko; Andrey A. Vasilyev; Alexey V. Zhovtan; Carolina Casadio; Ioannis Myserlis; Antonio Hales; Seiji Kameno; Juan Escudero; Ruediger Kneissl; Hugo Messias; Hiroshi Nagai; Dmitry Blinov; Ioakeim G. Bourbah; Sebastian Kiehlmann; Evangelos Kontopodis; Nikos Mandarakas; Stylianos Romanopoulos; Raphael Skalidis; Anna Vervelaki; Joseph R. Masiero; Dimitri Mawet; Maxwell A. Millar-Blanchaer; Georgia V. Panopoulou; Samaporn Tinyanont; Andrei V. Berdyugin; Masato Kagitani; Vadim Kravtsov; Takeshi Sakanoi; Ryo Imazawa; Mahito Sasada; Yasushi Fukazawa; Koji S. Kawabata; Makoto Uemura; Tsunefumi Mizuno; Tatsuya Nakaoka; Hiroshi Akitaya; Mark Gurwell; Ramprasad Rao; Niccoló Di Lalla; Nicoló Cibrario; Immacolata Donnarumma; Dawoon E. Kim; Nicola Omodei; Luigi Pacciani; Juri Poutanen; Fabrizio Tavecchio; Lucio A. Antonelli; Matteo Bachetti; Luca Baldini; Wayne H. Baumgartner; Ronaldo Bellazzini; Stefano Bianchi; Stephen D. Bongiorno; Raffaella Bonino; Alessandro Brez; Niccoló Bucciantini; Fiamma Capitanio; Simone Castellano; Stefano Ciprini; Enrico Costa; Alessandra De Rosa; Ettore Del Monte; Alessandro Di Marco; Victor Doroshenko; Michal Dovčiak; Teruaki Enoto; Yuri Evangelista; Sergio Fabiani; Riccardo Ferrazzoli; Javier A. Garcia; Shuichi Gunji; Kiyoshi Hayashida; Jeremy Heyl; Wataru Iwakiri; Vladimir Karas; Takao Kitaguchi; Jeffery J. Kolodziejczak; Henric Krawczynski; Fabio La Monaca; Luca Latronico; Simone Maldera; Alberto Manfreda; Frédéric Marin; Andrea Marinucci; Francesco Massaro; Giorgio Matt; Ikuyuki Mitsuishi; C. Y. Ng; Stephen L. O'Dell; Chiara Oppedisano; Alessandro Papitto; George G. Pavlov; Abel L. Peirson; Melissa Pesce-Rollins; Pierre Olivier Petrucci; Maura Pilia; Andrea Possenti; Brian D. Ramsey; John Rankin; Ajay Ratheesh; Roger W. Romani; Carmelo Sgró; Patrick Slane; Paolo Soffitta; Gloria Spandre; Toru Tamagawa; Roberto Taverna; Yuzuru Tawara; Allyn F. Tennant; Nicholas E. Thomas; Francesco Tombesi; Alessio Trois; Sergey Tsygankov; Roberto Turolla; Jacco Vink; Martin C. Weisskopf; Kinwah Wu; Fei Xie; Silvia Zane

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aca281

X-Ray Polarization Observations of BL Lacertae

Riccardo Middei, Ioannis Liodakis, Matteo Perri, Simonetta Puccetti, Elisabetta Cavazzuti, Laura Di Gesu, Steven R. Ehlert, Grzegorz Madejski, Alan P. Marscher, Herman L. Marshall, Fabio Muleri, Michela Negro, Svetlana G. Jorstad, Beatriz Agís-González, Iván Agudo, Giacomo Bonnoli, Víctor Casanova, Maya García-Comas, César Husillos, Alessandro MarchiniAlfredo Sota, Pouya M. Kouch, Maria I. Bernardos, Elina Lindfors, George A. Borman, Evgenia N. Kopatskaya, Elena G. Larionova, Daria A. Morozova, Sergey S. Savchenko, Andrey A. Vasilyev, Alexey V. Zhovtan, Carolina Casadio, Ioannis Myserlis, Antonio Hales, Seiji Kameno, Juan Escudero, Ruediger Kneissl, Hugo Messias, Hiroshi Nagai, Dmitry Blinov, Ioakeim G. Bourbah, Sebastian Kiehlmann, Evangelos Kontopodis, Nikos Mandarakas, Stylianos Romanopoulos, Raphael Skalidis, Anna Vervelaki, Joseph R. Masiero, Dimitri Mawet, Maxwell A. Millar-Blanchaer, Georgia V. Panopoulou, Samaporn Tinyanont, Andrei V. Berdyugin, Masato Kagitani, Vadim Kravtsov, Takeshi Sakanoi, Ryo Imazawa, Mahito Sasada, Yasushi Fukazawa, Koji S. Kawabata, Makoto Uemura, Tsunefumi Mizuno, Tatsuya Nakaoka, Hiroshi Akitaya, Mark Gurwell, Ramprasad Rao, Niccoló Di Lalla, Nicoló Cibrario, Immacolata Donnarumma, Dawoon E. Kim, Nicola Omodei, Luigi Pacciani, Juri Poutanen, Fabrizio Tavecchio, Lucio A. Antonelli, Matteo Bachetti, Luca Baldini, Wayne H. Baumgartner, Ronaldo Bellazzini, Stefano Bianchi, Stephen D. Bongiorno, Raffaella Bonino, Alessandro Brez, Niccoló Bucciantini, Fiamma Capitanio, Simone Castellano, Stefano Ciprini, Enrico Costa, Alessandra De Rosa, Ettore Del Monte, Alessandro Di Marco, Victor Doroshenko, Michal Dovčiak, Teruaki Enoto, Yuri Evangelista, Sergio Fabiani, Riccardo Ferrazzoli, Javier A. Garcia, Shuichi Gunji, Kiyoshi Hayashida, Jeremy Heyl, Wataru Iwakiri, Vladimir Karas, Takao Kitaguchi, Jeffery J. Kolodziejczak, Henric Krawczynski, Fabio La Monaca, Luca Latronico, Simone Maldera, Alberto Manfreda, Frédéric Marin, Andrea Marinucci, Francesco Massaro, Giorgio Matt, Ikuyuki Mitsuishi, C. Y. Ng, Stephen L. O'Dell, Chiara Oppedisano, Alessandro Papitto, George G. Pavlov, Abel L. Peirson, Melissa Pesce-Rollins, Pierre Olivier Petrucci, Maura Pilia, Andrea Possenti, Brian D. Ramsey, John Rankin, Ajay Ratheesh, Roger W. Romani, Carmelo Sgró, Patrick Slane, Paolo Soffitta, Gloria Spandre, Toru Tamagawa, Roberto Taverna, Yuzuru Tawara, Allyn F. Tennant, Nicholas E. Thomas, Francesco Tombesi, Alessio Trois, Sergey Tsygankov, Roberto Turolla, Jacco Vink, Martin C. Weisskopf, Kinwah Wu, Fei Xie, Silvia Zane

SCI - Planetary Plasma and Atmospheric Research Center (PPARC)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Blazars are a class of jet-dominated active galactic nuclei with a typical double-humped spectral energy distribution. It is of common consensus that the synchrotron emission is responsible for the low frequency peak, while the origin of the high frequency hump is still debated. The analysis of X-rays and their polarization can provide a valuable tool to understand the physical mechanisms responsible for the origin of high-energy emission of blazars. We report the first observations of BL Lacertae (BL Lac) performed with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, from which an upper limit to the polarization degree Π_X < 12.6% was found in the 2-8 keV band. We contemporaneously measured the polarization in radio, infrared, and optical wavelengths. Our multiwavelength polarization analysis disfavors a significant contribution of proton-synchrotron radiation to the X-ray emission at these epochs. Instead, it supports a leptonic origin for the X-ray emission in BL Lac.

Original language	English
Article number	L10
Journal	Astrophysical Journal Letters
Volume	942
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aca281
Publication status	Published - 2023 Jan 1

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

Access to Document

10.3847/2041-8213/aca281

Cite this

Middei, R., Liodakis, I., Perri, M., Puccetti, S., Cavazzuti, E., Di Gesu, L., Ehlert, S. R., Madejski, G., Marscher, A. P., Marshall, H. L., Muleri, F., Negro, M., Jorstad, S. G., Agís-González, B., Agudo, I., Bonnoli, G., Casanova, V., García-Comas, M., Husillos, C., ... Zane, S. (2023). X-Ray Polarization Observations of BL Lacertae. Astrophysical Journal Letters, 942(1), [L10]. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aca281

Middei, R, Liodakis, I, Perri, M, Puccetti, S, Cavazzuti, E, Di Gesu, L, Ehlert, SR, Madejski, G, Marscher, AP, Marshall, HL, Muleri, F, Negro, M, Jorstad, SG, Agís-González, B, Agudo, I, Bonnoli, G, Casanova, V, García-Comas, M, Husillos, C, Marchini, A, Sota, A, Kouch, PM, Bernardos, MI, Lindfors, E, Borman, GA, Kopatskaya, EN, Larionova, EG, Morozova, DA, Savchenko, SS, Vasilyev, AA, Zhovtan, AV, Casadio, C, Myserlis, I, Hales, A, Kameno, S, Escudero, J, Kneissl, R, Messias, H, Nagai, H, Blinov, D, Bourbah, IG, Kiehlmann, S, Kontopodis, E, Mandarakas, N, Romanopoulos, S, Skalidis, R, Vervelaki, A, Masiero, JR, Mawet, D, Millar-Blanchaer, MA, Panopoulou, GV, Tinyanont, S, Berdyugin, AV, Kagitani, M, Kravtsov, V, Sakanoi, T, Imazawa, R, Sasada, M, Fukazawa, Y, Kawabata, KS, Uemura, M, Mizuno, T, Nakaoka, T, Akitaya, H, Gurwell, M, Rao, R, Di Lalla, N, Cibrario, N, Donnarumma, I, Kim, DE, Omodei, N, Pacciani, L, Poutanen, J, Tavecchio, F, Antonelli, LA, Bachetti, M, Baldini, L, Baumgartner, WH, Bellazzini, R, Bianchi, S, Bongiorno, SD, Bonino, R, Brez, A, Bucciantini, N, Capitanio, F, Castellano, S, Ciprini, S, Costa, E, De Rosa, A, Del Monte, E, Di Marco, A, Doroshenko, V, Dovčiak, M, Enoto, T, Evangelista, Y, Fabiani, S, Ferrazzoli, R, Garcia, JA, Gunji, S, Hayashida, K, Heyl, J, Iwakiri, W, Karas, V, Kitaguchi, T, Kolodziejczak, JJ, Krawczynski, H, Monaca, FL, Latronico, L, Maldera, S, Manfreda, A, Marin, F, Marinucci, A, Massaro, F, Matt, G, Mitsuishi, I, Ng, CY, O'Dell, SL, Oppedisano, C, Papitto, A, Pavlov, GG, Peirson, AL, Pesce-Rollins, M, Petrucci, PO, Pilia, M, Possenti, A, Ramsey, BD, Rankin, J, Ratheesh, A, Romani, RW, Sgró, C, Slane, P, Soffitta, P, Spandre, G, Tamagawa, T, Taverna, R, Tawara, Y, Tennant, AF, Thomas, NE, Tombesi, F, Trois, A, Tsygankov, S, Turolla, R, Vink, J, Weisskopf, MC, Wu, K, Xie, F & Zane, S 2023, 'X-Ray Polarization Observations of BL Lacertae', Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 942, no. 1, L10. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aca281

@article{bcf1060dea724caeb452c5fc0938a9de,

title = "X-Ray Polarization Observations of BL Lacertae",

abstract = "Blazars are a class of jet-dominated active galactic nuclei with a typical double-humped spectral energy distribution. It is of common consensus that the synchrotron emission is responsible for the low frequency peak, while the origin of the high frequency hump is still debated. The analysis of X-rays and their polarization can provide a valuable tool to understand the physical mechanisms responsible for the origin of high-energy emission of blazars. We report the first observations of BL Lacertae (BL Lac) performed with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, from which an upper limit to the polarization degree ΠX < 12.6% was found in the 2-8 keV band. We contemporaneously measured the polarization in radio, infrared, and optical wavelengths. Our multiwavelength polarization analysis disfavors a significant contribution of proton-synchrotron radiation to the X-ray emission at these epochs. Instead, it supports a leptonic origin for the X-ray emission in BL Lac.",

author = "Riccardo Middei and Ioannis Liodakis and Matteo Perri and Simonetta Puccetti and Elisabetta Cavazzuti and {Di Gesu}, Laura and Ehlert, {Steven R.} and Grzegorz Madejski and Marscher, {Alan P.} and Marshall, {Herman L.} and Fabio Muleri and Michela Negro and Jorstad, {Svetlana G.} and Beatriz Ag{\'i}s-Gonz{\'a}lez and Iv{\'a}n Agudo and Giacomo Bonnoli and V{\'i}ctor Casanova and Maya Garc{\'i}a-Comas and C{\'e}sar Husillos and Alessandro Marchini and Alfredo Sota and Kouch, {Pouya M.} and Bernardos, {Maria I.} and Elina Lindfors and Borman, {George A.} and Kopatskaya, {Evgenia N.} and Larionova, {Elena G.} and Morozova, {Daria A.} and Savchenko, {Sergey S.} and Vasilyev, {Andrey A.} and Zhovtan, {Alexey V.} and Carolina Casadio and Ioannis Myserlis and Antonio Hales and Seiji Kameno and Juan Escudero and Ruediger Kneissl and Hugo Messias and Hiroshi Nagai and Dmitry Blinov and Bourbah, {Ioakeim G.} and Sebastian Kiehlmann and Evangelos Kontopodis and Nikos Mandarakas and Stylianos Romanopoulos and Raphael Skalidis and Anna Vervelaki and Masiero, {Joseph R.} and Dimitri Mawet and Millar-Blanchaer, {Maxwell A.} and Panopoulou, {Georgia V.} and Samaporn Tinyanont and Berdyugin, {Andrei V.} and Masato Kagitani and Vadim Kravtsov and Takeshi Sakanoi and Ryo Imazawa and Mahito Sasada and Yasushi Fukazawa and Kawabata, {Koji S.} and Makoto Uemura and Tsunefumi Mizuno and Tatsuya Nakaoka and Hiroshi Akitaya and Mark Gurwell and Ramprasad Rao and {Di Lalla}, Niccol{\'o} and Nicol{\'o} Cibrario and Immacolata Donnarumma and Kim, {Dawoon E.} and Nicola Omodei and Luigi Pacciani and Juri Poutanen and Fabrizio Tavecchio and Antonelli, {Lucio A.} and Matteo Bachetti and Luca Baldini and Baumgartner, {Wayne H.} and Ronaldo Bellazzini and Stefano Bianchi and Bongiorno, {Stephen D.} and Raffaella Bonino and Alessandro Brez and Niccol{\'o} Bucciantini and Fiamma Capitanio and Simone Castellano and Stefano Ciprini and Enrico Costa and {De Rosa}, Alessandra and {Del Monte}, Ettore and {Di Marco}, Alessandro and Victor Doroshenko and Michal Dov{\v c}iak and Teruaki Enoto and Yuri Evangelista and Sergio Fabiani and Riccardo Ferrazzoli and Garcia, {Javier A.} and Shuichi Gunji and Kiyoshi Hayashida and Jeremy Heyl and Wataru Iwakiri and Vladimir Karas and Takao Kitaguchi and Kolodziejczak, {Jeffery J.} and Henric Krawczynski and Monaca, {Fabio La} and Luca Latronico and Simone Maldera and Alberto Manfreda and Fr{\'e}d{\'e}ric Marin and Andrea Marinucci and Francesco Massaro and Giorgio Matt and Ikuyuki Mitsuishi and Ng, {C. Y.} and O'Dell, {Stephen L.} and Chiara Oppedisano and Alessandro Papitto and Pavlov, {George G.} and Peirson, {Abel L.} and Melissa Pesce-Rollins and Petrucci, {Pierre Olivier} and Maura Pilia and Andrea Possenti and Ramsey, {Brian D.} and John Rankin and Ajay Ratheesh and Romani, {Roger W.} and Carmelo Sgr{\'o} and Patrick Slane and Paolo Soffitta and Gloria Spandre and Toru Tamagawa and Roberto Taverna and Yuzuru Tawara and Tennant, {Allyn F.} and Thomas, {Nicholas E.} and Francesco Tombesi and Alessio Trois and Sergey Tsygankov and Roberto Turolla and Jacco Vink and Weisskopf, {Martin C.} and Kinwah Wu and Fei Xie and Silvia Zane",

note = "Funding Information: We thank the anonymous referee for their bright comments. The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is a joint US and Italian mission. The US contribution is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and led and managed by its Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), with industry partner Ball Aerospace (contract NNM15AA18C). The Italian contribution is supported by the Italian Space Agency (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, ASI) through contract ASI-OHBI-2017-12-I.0, agreements ASI-INAF-2017-12-H0 and ASI-INFN-2017.13-H0, and its Space Science Data Center (SSDC), and by the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy. This research used data products provided by the IXPE Team (MSFC, SSDC, INAF, and INFN) and distributed with additional software tools by the High-Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). We acknowledge financial support from ASI-INAF agreement n. 2022-14-HH.0. The research at Boston University was supported in part by National Science Foundation grant AST-2108622 and NASA Swift Guest Investigator grant 80NSSC22K0537. This research has made use of data from the RoboPol program, a collaboration between Caltech, the University of Crete, IA-FORTH, IUCAA, the MPIfR, and the Nicolaus Copernicus University, which was conducted at Skinakas Observatory in Crete, Greece. The IAA-CSIC coauthors acknowledge financial support from the Spanish “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion” (MCINN) through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award for the Instituto de Astrof{\'i}sica de Andaluc{\'i}a-CSIC (SEV-2017-0709). Acquisition and reduction of the POLAMI, TOP-MAPCAR, and OSN data was supported in part by MICINN through grants AYA2016-80889-P and PID2019-107847RB-C44. The POLAMI observations were carried out at the IRAM 30 m Telescope. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany), and IGN (Spain). This Letter makes use of the following ALMA director{\textquoteright}s discretionary time data under proposal ESO#2021.A.00016.T. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA), and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST, and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO, and NAOJ. Some of the data reported here are based on observations obtained at the Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory as part of a continuing collaboration between the California Institute of Technology, NASA/JPL, Yale University, and the National Astronomical Observatories of China. This research made use of Photutils, an Astropy package for detection and photometry of astronomical sources (Bradley et al. ). G.V.P. acknowledges support by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF2-51444.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. The data in this study include observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, owned in collaboration by the University of Turku and Aarhus University, and operated jointly by Aarhus University, the University of Turku, and the University of Oslo, representing Denmark, Finland, and Norway, the University of Iceland and Stockholm University at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. The data presented here were obtained in part with ALFOSC, which is provided by the Instituto de Astrof{\'i}sica de Andaluc{\'i}a (IAA) under a joint agreement with the University of Copenhagen and NOT. E.L. was supported by Academy of Finland projects 317636 and 320045. Part of the French contribution is supported by the Scientific Research National Center (CNRS) and the French Spatial Agency (CNES). Some of the data are based on observations collected at the Observatorio de Sierra Nevada, owned and operated by the Instituto de Astrof{\'i}sica de Andaluc{\'i}a (IAA-CSIC). Further data are based on observations collected at the Centro Astron{\'o}mico Hispano-Alem{\'a}n (CAHA), operated jointly by Junta de Andaluc{\'i}a and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient{\'i}ficas (IAA-CSIC). D.B., S.K., R.S., and N. M. acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 771282. C.C. acknowledges support by the European Research Council (ERC) under the HORIZON ERC Grants 2021 program under grant agreement No. 101040021. The Dipol-2 polarimeter was built in cooperation by the University of Turku, Finland, and the Leibniz Institut f{\"u}r Sonnenphysik, Germany, with support from the Leibniz Association grant SAW-2011-KIS-7. We are grateful to the Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, for the allocated observing time. A.H. acknowledges The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This work was supported by JST, the establishment of university fellowships toward the creation of science technology innovation; grant No. JPMJFS2129. This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI grant Nos. JP21H01137. This work was also partially supported by Optical and Near-Infrared Astronomy Inter-University Cooperation Program from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan. We are grateful to the observation and operating members of Kanata Telescope. The Submillimeter Array is a joint project between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is funded by the Smithsonian Institution and the Academia Sinica. Maunakea, the location of the SMA, is a culturally important site for the indigenous Hawaiian people; we are privileged to study the cosmos from its summit. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.",

year = "2023",

month = jan,

day = "1",

doi = "10.3847/2041-8213/aca281",

language = "English",

volume = "942",

journal = "Astrophysical Journal Letters",

issn = "2041-8205",

publisher = "IOP Publishing Ltd.",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - X-Ray Polarization Observations of BL Lacertae

AU - Middei, Riccardo

AU - Liodakis, Ioannis

AU - Perri, Matteo

AU - Puccetti, Simonetta

AU - Cavazzuti, Elisabetta

AU - Di Gesu, Laura

AU - Ehlert, Steven R.

AU - Madejski, Grzegorz

AU - Marscher, Alan P.

AU - Marshall, Herman L.

AU - Muleri, Fabio

AU - Negro, Michela

AU - Jorstad, Svetlana G.

AU - Agís-González, Beatriz

AU - Agudo, Iván

AU - Bonnoli, Giacomo

AU - Casanova, Víctor

AU - García-Comas, Maya

AU - Husillos, César

AU - Marchini, Alessandro

AU - Sota, Alfredo

AU - Kouch, Pouya M.

AU - Bernardos, Maria I.

AU - Lindfors, Elina

AU - Borman, George A.

AU - Kopatskaya, Evgenia N.

AU - Larionova, Elena G.

AU - Morozova, Daria A.

AU - Savchenko, Sergey S.

AU - Vasilyev, Andrey A.

AU - Zhovtan, Alexey V.

AU - Casadio, Carolina

AU - Myserlis, Ioannis

AU - Hales, Antonio

AU - Kameno, Seiji

AU - Escudero, Juan

AU - Kneissl, Ruediger

AU - Messias, Hugo

AU - Nagai, Hiroshi

AU - Blinov, Dmitry

AU - Bourbah, Ioakeim G.

AU - Kiehlmann, Sebastian

AU - Kontopodis, Evangelos

AU - Mandarakas, Nikos

AU - Romanopoulos, Stylianos

AU - Skalidis, Raphael

AU - Vervelaki, Anna

AU - Masiero, Joseph R.

AU - Mawet, Dimitri

AU - Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.

AU - Panopoulou, Georgia V.

AU - Tinyanont, Samaporn

AU - Berdyugin, Andrei V.

AU - Kagitani, Masato

AU - Kravtsov, Vadim

AU - Sakanoi, Takeshi

AU - Imazawa, Ryo

AU - Sasada, Mahito

AU - Fukazawa, Yasushi

AU - Kawabata, Koji S.

AU - Uemura, Makoto

AU - Mizuno, Tsunefumi

AU - Nakaoka, Tatsuya

AU - Akitaya, Hiroshi

AU - Gurwell, Mark

AU - Rao, Ramprasad

AU - Di Lalla, Niccoló

AU - Cibrario, Nicoló

AU - Donnarumma, Immacolata

AU - Kim, Dawoon E.

AU - Omodei, Nicola

AU - Pacciani, Luigi

AU - Poutanen, Juri

AU - Tavecchio, Fabrizio

AU - Antonelli, Lucio A.

AU - Bachetti, Matteo

AU - Baldini, Luca

AU - Baumgartner, Wayne H.

AU - Bellazzini, Ronaldo

AU - Bianchi, Stefano

AU - Bongiorno, Stephen D.

AU - Bonino, Raffaella

AU - Brez, Alessandro

AU - Bucciantini, Niccoló

AU - Capitanio, Fiamma

AU - Castellano, Simone

AU - Ciprini, Stefano

AU - Costa, Enrico

AU - De Rosa, Alessandra

AU - Del Monte, Ettore

AU - Di Marco, Alessandro

AU - Doroshenko, Victor

AU - Dovčiak, Michal

AU - Enoto, Teruaki

AU - Evangelista, Yuri

AU - Fabiani, Sergio

AU - Ferrazzoli, Riccardo

AU - Garcia, Javier A.

AU - Gunji, Shuichi

AU - Hayashida, Kiyoshi

AU - Heyl, Jeremy

AU - Iwakiri, Wataru

AU - Karas, Vladimir

AU - Kitaguchi, Takao

AU - Kolodziejczak, Jeffery J.

AU - Krawczynski, Henric

AU - Monaca, Fabio La

AU - Latronico, Luca

AU - Maldera, Simone

AU - Manfreda, Alberto

AU - Marin, Frédéric

AU - Marinucci, Andrea

AU - Massaro, Francesco

AU - Matt, Giorgio

AU - Mitsuishi, Ikuyuki

AU - Ng, C. Y.

AU - O'Dell, Stephen L.

AU - Oppedisano, Chiara

AU - Papitto, Alessandro

AU - Pavlov, George G.

AU - Peirson, Abel L.

AU - Pesce-Rollins, Melissa

AU - Petrucci, Pierre Olivier

AU - Pilia, Maura

AU - Possenti, Andrea

AU - Ramsey, Brian D.

AU - Rankin, John

AU - Ratheesh, Ajay

AU - Romani, Roger W.

AU - Sgró, Carmelo

AU - Slane, Patrick

AU - Soffitta, Paolo

AU - Spandre, Gloria

AU - Tamagawa, Toru

AU - Taverna, Roberto

AU - Tawara, Yuzuru

AU - Tennant, Allyn F.

AU - Thomas, Nicholas E.

AU - Tombesi, Francesco

AU - Trois, Alessio

AU - Tsygankov, Sergey

AU - Turolla, Roberto

AU - Vink, Jacco

AU - Weisskopf, Martin C.

AU - Wu, Kinwah

AU - Xie, Fei

AU - Zane, Silvia

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the anonymous referee for their bright comments. The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is a joint US and Italian mission. The US contribution is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and led and managed by its Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), with industry partner Ball Aerospace (contract NNM15AA18C). The Italian contribution is supported by the Italian Space Agency (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, ASI) through contract ASI-OHBI-2017-12-I.0, agreements ASI-INAF-2017-12-H0 and ASI-INFN-2017.13-H0, and its Space Science Data Center (SSDC), and by the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy. This research used data products provided by the IXPE Team (MSFC, SSDC, INAF, and INFN) and distributed with additional software tools by the High-Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). We acknowledge financial support from ASI-INAF agreement n. 2022-14-HH.0. The research at Boston University was supported in part by National Science Foundation grant AST-2108622 and NASA Swift Guest Investigator grant 80NSSC22K0537. This research has made use of data from the RoboPol program, a collaboration between Caltech, the University of Crete, IA-FORTH, IUCAA, the MPIfR, and the Nicolaus Copernicus University, which was conducted at Skinakas Observatory in Crete, Greece. The IAA-CSIC coauthors acknowledge financial support from the Spanish “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion” (MCINN) through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía-CSIC (SEV-2017-0709). Acquisition and reduction of the POLAMI, TOP-MAPCAR, and OSN data was supported in part by MICINN through grants AYA2016-80889-P and PID2019-107847RB-C44. The POLAMI observations were carried out at the IRAM 30 m Telescope. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany), and IGN (Spain). This Letter makes use of the following ALMA director’s discretionary time data under proposal ESO#2021.A.00016.T. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA), and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST, and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO, and NAOJ. Some of the data reported here are based on observations obtained at the Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory as part of a continuing collaboration between the California Institute of Technology, NASA/JPL, Yale University, and the National Astronomical Observatories of China. This research made use of Photutils, an Astropy package for detection and photometry of astronomical sources (Bradley et al. ). G.V.P. acknowledges support by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF2-51444.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. The data in this study include observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, owned in collaboration by the University of Turku and Aarhus University, and operated jointly by Aarhus University, the University of Turku, and the University of Oslo, representing Denmark, Finland, and Norway, the University of Iceland and Stockholm University at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. The data presented here were obtained in part with ALFOSC, which is provided by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA) under a joint agreement with the University of Copenhagen and NOT. E.L. was supported by Academy of Finland projects 317636 and 320045. Part of the French contribution is supported by the Scientific Research National Center (CNRS) and the French Spatial Agency (CNES). Some of the data are based on observations collected at the Observatorio de Sierra Nevada, owned and operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC). Further data are based on observations collected at the Centro Astronómico Hispano-Alemán (CAHA), operated jointly by Junta de Andalucía and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IAA-CSIC). D.B., S.K., R.S., and N. M. acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 771282. C.C. acknowledges support by the European Research Council (ERC) under the HORIZON ERC Grants 2021 program under grant agreement No. 101040021. The Dipol-2 polarimeter was built in cooperation by the University of Turku, Finland, and the Leibniz Institut für Sonnenphysik, Germany, with support from the Leibniz Association grant SAW-2011-KIS-7. We are grateful to the Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, for the allocated observing time. A.H. acknowledges The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This work was supported by JST, the establishment of university fellowships toward the creation of science technology innovation; grant No. JPMJFS2129. This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI grant Nos. JP21H01137. This work was also partially supported by Optical and Near-Infrared Astronomy Inter-University Cooperation Program from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan. We are grateful to the observation and operating members of Kanata Telescope. The Submillimeter Array is a joint project between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is funded by the Smithsonian Institution and the Academia Sinica. Maunakea, the location of the SMA, is a culturally important site for the indigenous Hawaiian people; we are privileged to study the cosmos from its summit. Publisher Copyright: © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

PY - 2023/1/1

Y1 - 2023/1/1

N2 - Blazars are a class of jet-dominated active galactic nuclei with a typical double-humped spectral energy distribution. It is of common consensus that the synchrotron emission is responsible for the low frequency peak, while the origin of the high frequency hump is still debated. The analysis of X-rays and their polarization can provide a valuable tool to understand the physical mechanisms responsible for the origin of high-energy emission of blazars. We report the first observations of BL Lacertae (BL Lac) performed with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, from which an upper limit to the polarization degree ΠX < 12.6% was found in the 2-8 keV band. We contemporaneously measured the polarization in radio, infrared, and optical wavelengths. Our multiwavelength polarization analysis disfavors a significant contribution of proton-synchrotron radiation to the X-ray emission at these epochs. Instead, it supports a leptonic origin for the X-ray emission in BL Lac.

AB - Blazars are a class of jet-dominated active galactic nuclei with a typical double-humped spectral energy distribution. It is of common consensus that the synchrotron emission is responsible for the low frequency peak, while the origin of the high frequency hump is still debated. The analysis of X-rays and their polarization can provide a valuable tool to understand the physical mechanisms responsible for the origin of high-energy emission of blazars. We report the first observations of BL Lacertae (BL Lac) performed with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, from which an upper limit to the polarization degree ΠX < 12.6% was found in the 2-8 keV band. We contemporaneously measured the polarization in radio, infrared, and optical wavelengths. Our multiwavelength polarization analysis disfavors a significant contribution of proton-synchrotron radiation to the X-ray emission at these epochs. Instead, it supports a leptonic origin for the X-ray emission in BL Lac.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146217824&partnerID=8YFLogxK

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U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/aca281

DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/aca281

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85146217824

SN - 2041-8205

VL - 942

JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters

JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters

IS - 1

M1 - L10

ER -

X-Ray Polarization Observations of BL Lacertae

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