Testing the inverse-Compton catastrophe scenario in the intra-day variable blazar S5 0716+71
Testing the inverse-Compton catastrophe scenario in the intra-day variable blazar S5 0716+71
Context.Some intra-day variable, compact extra-galactic radio sources show brightness temperatures severely exceeding 1012 K, the limit set by catastrophic inverse-Compton (IC) cooling in sources of incoherent synchrotron radiation. The violation of the IC limit, actually possible under non-stationary conditions, would lead to IC avalanches in the soft-γ-ray energy band during …