Evidence of Two-Component Optical Polarization in Blazar 1ES 1959+650

• Main Authors: Sorcia Marco, Benítez Erika, Hiriart David
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2013-12-01
• Series: EPJ Web of Conferences
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20136106008

In this work we present an analysis of the optical polarimetric variability of the TeV-blazar 1 ES 1959+650 from 2007 October 18 to 2011 May 5. The source showed a maximum variation of 1.2 mag in R- band, and a maximum polarization degree of 12.2%. The blazar presented a preferential position angle of the optical polarization of ~ 153°, with variations of 10° − 50°, which is in agreement with the projected position angle of the parsec-scale jet found at 43 GHz. We infer the existence of the two optically thin synchrotron components that contribute to the polarized flux, consistent with the spine-sheath model. One of them is stable with a constant polarization degree of 4%. Assuming a stationary shock, we estimated some parameters associated with the physics of the relativistic jet: the Doppler factor of δD ∼ 23, the viewing angle of the jet of Φ ~ 2°.4, and the size of the emission region of rb ~ 5.6 × 1017 cm.