Possible proton synchrotron origin of X-ray and gamma-ray emission in large-scale jet of 3C 273

Abstract

The large-scale jet of quasar 3C 273 has been observed in radio to gamma-ray frequencies. Earlier the X-ray emission from knot A of this jet has been explained with inverse Compton scattering of the cosmic microwave background radiations by the shock accelerated relativistic electrons in the jet. More recently it has been shown that this mechanism overproduces the gamma-ray flux at GeV energy and violates the observational results from Fermi LAT. We have considered the synchrotron emission from a broken power-law spectrum of accelerated protons in the jet to explain the observed X-ray to gamma-ray flux from knot A. The two scenarios discussed in our work are (i) magnetic field is high, synchrotron energy loss time of the protons is shorter than their escape time from the knot region and the age of the jet and (ii) their escape time is shorter than their synchrotron energy loss time and the age of the jet. These scenarios can explain the observed photon spectrum well for moderate values of Doppler factor. The required jet luminosity is high ∼1046 erg s−1 in the first scenario and moderate ∼1045 erg s−1 in the second, which makes the second scenario more favourable.