A high-energy muon neutrino event, IceCube-170922A, was recently discovered in both spatial and temporal coincidence with a gamma-ray flare of the blazar TXS 0506+056. It has been shown with standard one-zone models that neutrinos can be produced in the blazar jet via hadronic interactions, but with a flux that is mostly limited by the X-ray data. In this work, we explore the neutrino production from TXS 0506+056 by invoking two physically distinct emission zones in the jet, with an inner blob inside of or close to the broad-line region (BLR) and an outer one well beyond the BLR. Using the Doppler-boosted radiation of the BLR as the target photon field, the inner zone accounts for the neutrino and gamma-ray emission via pγ interactions and inverse Compton scattering, respectively, while the outer zone produces the optical and X-ray emission via synchrotron and synchrotron self-Compton processes. The different conditions of the two zones allow us to suppress the X-ray emission from the electromagnetic cascade, and set a much higher upper limit on the muon neutrino flux (i.e., ∼10⁻¹¹ erg cm⁻² s⁻¹) than in one-zone models. We compare our scenario in detail with one-zone models discussed in the literature, and argue that differentiating between such scenarios will become possible with next-generation neutrino telescopes, such as IceCube-Gen2.

Although many high-energy neutrinos detected by the IceCube telescope are believed to have an extraterrestrial origin, their astrophysical sources remain a mystery. Recently, an unprecedented discovery of a high-energy muon neutrino event coincident with a multiwavelength flare from a blazar, TXS $0506+056$, shed some light on the origin of the neutrinos. It is usually believed that a blazar is produced by a relativistic jet launched from an accreting supermassive black hole (SMBH). Here, we show that the high-energy neutrino event can be interpreted by the inelastic hadronuclear interactions between the accelerated cosmic-ray protons in the relativistic jet and the dense gas clouds in the vicinity of the SMBH. Such a scenario only requires a moderate proton power in the jet, which could be much smaller than that required in the conventional hadronic model which instead calls upon the photomeson process. Meanwhile, the flux of the multiwavelength flare from the optical to gamma-ray band can be well explained by invoking a second radiation zone in the jet at a larger distance to the SMBH. In our model, the neutrino emission lasts a shorter time than the multiwavelength flare, so the neutrino event is not necessarily correlated with the flare, but it is probably accompanied by a spectrum hardening above a few giga-electron-volt (GeV).

In this work, we investigate the 2014–2015 neutrino flare associated with the blazar TXS 0506+056 and a recently discovered muon neutrino event IceCube-200107A in spatial coincidence with the blazar 4FGL J0955.1+3551, under the framework of a two-zone radiation model of blazars where an inner/outer blob close to/far from the supermassive black hole is invoked. An interesting feature that the two sources have in common is that no evidence of GeV gamma-ray activity is found during the neutrino detection period, probably implying a large opacity for GeV gamma rays in the neutrino production region. In our model, continuous particle acceleration/injection takes place in the inner blob at the jet base, where the hot X-ray corona of the supermassive black hole provides target photon fields for efficient neutrino production and strong GeV gamma-ray absorption. We show that this model can self-consistently interpret the neutrino emission from both blazars in a large parameter space. In the meantime, the dissipation processes in outer blob are responsible for the simultaneous multiwavelength emission of both sources. In agreement with previous studies of TXS 0506+056, an intense MeV emission from the induced electromagnetic cascade in the inner blob is robustly expected to accompany the neutrino flare in our model and could be used to test the model using the next-generation MeV gamma-ray detector in the future.

In this work, we collect quasi-simultaneous infrared, optical, X-ray and γ-ray data of 60 Fermi fourth LAT AGN catalog (4LAC) flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs). In the framework of the conventional one-zone leptonic model, we investigate the physical properties of Fermi-4LAC FSRQs’ jets by modeling their quasi-simultaneous spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Our main results are summarized as follows. (1) There is a linear correlation between synchrotron peak frequency and curvature of the electron energy distribution. As suggested by previous works, the slope of the best linear fitting equation of this correlation is consistent with statistic acceleration that needs a fluctuation of fractional acceleration gain. (2) The γ-ray dissipation regions are located at the range from 0.1 to 10 pc away from the supermassive black hole, and located outside the broad-line region and within the dusty torus. (3) A size relation P _e (the kinetic power carried in relativistic electrons) ∼P _B (Poynting flux) ≤P _r (the radiative power) <P _p (the kinetic power in cold protons) is found in our modeling. Among them, P _e ∼ P _B suggests that SEDs of almost all FSRQs with parameters are close to equipartition between the magnetic field and the relativistic electrons. The P _e < P _r suggest that the most energy of the relativistic electrons are dissipated by EC radiation for FSRQs. (4) There is an anticorrelation between the peak energy of SEDs (γ _peak) and the jet power (P _jet), which is consistent with the blazar sequence.

We study the requirement of the jet power in the conventional p–γ models (photopion production and Bethe–Heitler pair production) for TeV BL Lac objects. We select a sample of TeV BL Lac objects whose spectral energy distributions are difficult to explain by the one-zone leptonic model. Based on the relation between the p–γ interaction efficiency and the opacity of γγ absorption, we find that the detection of TeV emission poses upper limits on the p–γ interaction efficiencies in these sources and hence minimum jet powers can be derived accordingly. We find that the obtained minimum jet powers exceed the Eddington luminosity of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Implications for the accretion mode of the SMBHs in these BL Lac objects and the origin of their TeV emissions are discussed.

We continuously monitored the blazar S5 0716+714 in the optical g, r, and i bands from 2017 November 10 to 2019 June 6. The total number of observations is 201 nights including 26,973 data points. This is a very large quasi-simultaneous multicolor sample for the blazar. The average time spans and time resolutions are 3.4 hr and 2.9 minutes per night, respectively. During the period of observations, the target source in the r band brightens from 14.ͫ16 to 12.ͫ29 together with five prominent subflares, and then becomes fainter to 14.ͫ76, and again brightens to 12.ͫ94 with seven prominent subflares. For the long-term variations, we find a strong flatter-when-brighter (FWB) trend at a low-flux state and then a weak FWB trend at a higher-flux state. A weak FWB trend at a low-flux state and then a strong FWB trend at a higher-flux state are also reported. Most subflares show strong FWB trends, except for two flares with a weak FWB trend. The particle acceleration and cooling mechanisms together with the superposition of the different FWB slopes from the subflares likely explain the optical color behaviors. A scenario of bent jet is discussed.