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Identifying γ-ray emitting blazars in the PASIPHAE era: polarimetry as a unique probe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2023

Nikolaos Mandarakas Open the ORCID record for Nikolaos Mandarakas [Opens in a new window]
Nikolaos Mandarakas*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Crete, 70013, Heraklion, Greece Institute of Astrophysics, Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, Voutes, 70013 Heraklion, Greece
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Abstract

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The Fermi γ-ray telescope has detected 6658 sources, with 1845 of them remaining unidentified. We show that polarimetry of γ-ray fields is a powerful asset in the hunt of active galactic nuclei (AGN) as potential optical counterparts for γ-ray sources. We have studied an unidentified Fermi field (3FGL J0221.2+2518) and found a previously-unknown highly-polarized extragalactic object as a potential optical counterpart within the 1-sigma error ellipse of the corresponding γ-ray source. Based on a collection of data, we find that it most probably is a composite object: a star-forming galaxy accompanied by AGN. PASIPHAE is a large polarimetric experiment which will measure the polarisation of sources away from the galactic plane. This will provide an excellent opportunity to study hundreds of unidentified γ-ray sources and unveil potential optical counterparts, using polarimetry.

Keywords

techniques: polarimetricgalaxies: activegamma rays: galaxiesAstrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Type
Contributed Paper
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 17 , Symposium S375: The Multimessenger Chakra of Blazar Jets , December 2021 , pp. 71 - 75
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Creative Commons
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Astronomical Union

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