Gamma-ray Blazars and Active Galactic Nuclei seen by the Fermi-LAT

by Benoit Lott (Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS)

Tuesday 14 Feb 2012, 13:15 → 14:15 Europe/Stockholm

FA32

Active Galactic Nuclei are the most powerful recurrent objects of the Universe. They are powered by accreting supermassive black holes, launching a relativistic jet in the case of radiogalaxies. Blazars are radiogalaxies with jets pointing directly at us, giving rise to a large flux variability and relativistic aberration effects. Since the launch of the Fermi satellite in 2008, the gamma-ray Large Area Telescope (LAT) has enabled a new insight into these extreme objects. Blazars constitute by far the largest source class seen by the LAT with 1100 objects (representing 60% of all sources) detected after two years of operation. The seminar will highlight the major findings related to these objects. Attention will also be given to the brightest LAT blazar, 3C 454.3, which has reached record flux levels during different outbursts, reaching an apparent luminosity in excess of 10^50 erg cm^-2 s^-1. The seminar will finally touch on ongoing variability studies.