Temporal and spectral study of PKS 0208−512 during the 2019–2020 flare

Abstract

ABSTRACT We present a temporal and spectral study of the blazar PKS 0208−512, using recent flaring activity from 2019 November to 2020 May, as detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope. The contemporaneous X-ray and optical/ultraviolet observations from theSwift X-Ray Telescope and UltraViolet and Optical Telescope are also used. During the activity state, the 2-d binned γ-ray light curve shows multiple peaks indicating subflares. To understand the possible physical mechanisms behind flux enhancement, we divided the activity state of the source into several flux states and carried out detailed temporal and spectral studies. The timing analysis of light curves suggests that peaks of subflares have rise and decay times of the order of days, with the flux doubling time ∼ 2 d. The 2-d binned γ-ray light curve shows double-lognormal flux distribution. The broad-band spectral energy distribution (SED) for three selected flux states can be well fitted under synchrotron, synchrotron self-Compton and external Compton emission mechanisms. We obtained the physical parameters of the jet by SED modelling and their confidence intervals through χ2-statistics. Our SED modelling results suggest that during the quiescent state, the γ-ray spectrum can be explained by considering the external Compton scattering of infrared photons from the dusty torus. However, γ-ray spectra corresponding to flares demand additional target photons from the broad-line region (BLR) along with infrared. These suggest that, during flares, the emission region is close to the edge of the BLR, while for the quiescent state, the emission region is away from the BLR. The best-fitting results suggest that a marginal increase in the magnetic field during the flaring episode can result in flux enhancement. This is possibly associated with the efficiency of particle acceleration during flaring states compared with the quiescent state.