High-redshift Fermi blazars observed by GROND and Swift

Abstract

We observed five γ-ray-loud blazars at redshift greater than 2 with the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) and the UltraViolet and Optical Telescope (UVOT) on-board the Swift satellite, and the Gamma-Ray burst Optical Near-Infrared Detector (GROND) instrument. These observations were quasi-simultaneous, usually within a few hours. For four of these blazars, the near-IR to UV data show the presence of an accretion disc, and we could reliably estimate its accretion rate and black hole mass. One of them, PKS 1348+007, was found in an extraordinarily high IR-optical state, almost two orders of magnitude brighter than at the epoch of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey observations. For all the five quasars, the physical parameters of the jet-emitting zone, derived by applying a one-zone emission model, are similar to that found for the bulk of other γ-ray-loud quasars. With our observations, we have X-ray data for the full sample of blazars at z > 2 present in the Fermi 2-year (2LAC) catalogue. This allows us to have a rather complete view of the spectral energy distribution of all high-redshift Fermi blazars, and to draw some conclusions about their properties, and especially about the relation between the accretion rate and the jet power.