The most distant $γ$-ray flare to date: a multiwavelength campaign on the $z = 4.715$ blazar GB6 B1428+4217
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2025
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| author | Gokus, Andrea Errando, Manel Agudo, Ivan Böttcher, Markus Eppel, Florian Pedrosa, Juan Escudero Heßdörfer, Jonas Jorstad, Svetlana Kadler, Matthias Kraus, Alex Kreter, Michael McBride, Felicia Morcuende, Daniel Otero-Santos, Jorge Wilms, Jörn |
| author_facet | Gokus, Andrea Errando, Manel Agudo, Ivan Böttcher, Markus Eppel, Florian Pedrosa, Juan Escudero Heßdörfer, Jonas Jorstad, Svetlana Kadler, Matthias Kraus, Alex Kreter, Michael McBride, Felicia Morcuende, Daniel Otero-Santos, Jorge Wilms, Jörn |
| contents | In November 2023, the Fermi Large Area Telescope detected a $γ$-ray flare from the high-redshift blazar GB6 B1428+4217 ($z=4.715$). We initiated a multi-wavelength follow-up campaign involving Swift, NuSTAR, the Sierra Nevada and Perkins Observatories, and the Effelsberg 100-m radio telescope. This source, also known as 5BZQ J1430+4204, has shown an anomalous soft X-ray spectrum in previous observations, including possible ionized absorption features or signatures of bulk Comptonization of thermal electrons, which are also detected during the flaring episode. Simultaneous optical data revealed a polarization fraction of ${\sim}8$\% in the R band, confirming that synchrotron emission dominated over thermal emission from the accretion disk. The hard X-ray flux was enhanced during the flare. Modeling of the broadband spectral energy distribution suggests that the high-energy component is dominated by Compton scattering by external seed photons from the accretion disk. The origin of the flare is consistent with the injection of a hard-spectrum electron population in the emission region. With a $γ$-ray luminosity among the top 5% of flaring events, GB6 B1428+4217 exemplifies a prototypical MeV blazar. Its Compton-dominated SED and extreme luminosity are in line with expectations from the blazar sequence. High-redshift flares like this are critical for understanding jet physics in the early Universe and may improve detection prospects with future missions such as COSI. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_19482 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The most distant $γ$-ray flare to date: a multiwavelength campaign on the $z = 4.715$ blazar GB6 B1428+4217 Gokus, Andrea Errando, Manel Agudo, Ivan Böttcher, Markus Eppel, Florian Pedrosa, Juan Escudero Heßdörfer, Jonas Jorstad, Svetlana Kadler, Matthias Kraus, Alex Kreter, Michael McBride, Felicia Morcuende, Daniel Otero-Santos, Jorge Wilms, Jörn High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena In November 2023, the Fermi Large Area Telescope detected a $γ$-ray flare from the high-redshift blazar GB6 B1428+4217 ($z=4.715$). We initiated a multi-wavelength follow-up campaign involving Swift, NuSTAR, the Sierra Nevada and Perkins Observatories, and the Effelsberg 100-m radio telescope. This source, also known as 5BZQ J1430+4204, has shown an anomalous soft X-ray spectrum in previous observations, including possible ionized absorption features or signatures of bulk Comptonization of thermal electrons, which are also detected during the flaring episode. Simultaneous optical data revealed a polarization fraction of ${\sim}8$\% in the R band, confirming that synchrotron emission dominated over thermal emission from the accretion disk. The hard X-ray flux was enhanced during the flare. Modeling of the broadband spectral energy distribution suggests that the high-energy component is dominated by Compton scattering by external seed photons from the accretion disk. The origin of the flare is consistent with the injection of a hard-spectrum electron population in the emission region. With a $γ$-ray luminosity among the top 5% of flaring events, GB6 B1428+4217 exemplifies a prototypical MeV blazar. Its Compton-dominated SED and extreme luminosity are in line with expectations from the blazar sequence. High-redshift flares like this are critical for understanding jet physics in the early Universe and may improve detection prospects with future missions such as COSI. |
| title | The most distant $γ$-ray flare to date: a multiwavelength campaign on the $z = 4.715$ blazar GB6 B1428+4217 |
| topic | High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.19482 |