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Title: "The Caltech Blazar Monitoring Program: Status and Future Plans"

Dr. Oliver King
Astronomy Department
California Institute of Technology
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When:  Wednesday, April 6 2011 at 2 p.m.
Where: 2nd Floor Seminar Room

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Abstract:

Many active galactic nuclei (AGN) host highly energetic relativistic
jets, power by accretion onto a supermassive black hole at their core.
When these jets are oriented close to the line of sight with Earth we
observe them as blazars: highly variable sources with emission from
radio to gamma-ray wavelengths. Significant questions remain about the
source of the gamma-ray photons, despite decades of intensive study. The
OVRO 40 m Telescope monitoring program currently carries out
twice-weekly measurements of the 15 GHz flux density of nearly 1600
blazars and other AGN, including all those associated with northern
(declination > -20 degrees) Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) detections
and a preselected sample ideal for statistical studies. I will present
some results from the program, describe the statistical method we have
developed, and describe an upgrade to this program which will increase
the sensitivity of the receiver and add the capability to measure linear
polarization strength and position angle. I will also discuss a new
program which aims to provide high-cadence monitoring of the linear
polarization of >100 gamma-ray loud blazars at optical wavelengths in
collaboration with the Skinakas Observatory.
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