Modeling Blazar Broadband Emission with a Convolutional Neural Network. I. Synchrotron Self-Compton Model

D. Bégué, N. Sahakyan, H. Dereli-Bégué, P. Giommi, S. Gasparyan, M. Khachatryan, A. Casotto, A. Pe’er

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Modeling the multiwavelength spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of blazars provides key insights into the underlying physical processes responsible for the emission. While SED modeling with self-consistent models is computationally demanding, it is essential for a comprehensive understanding of these astrophysical objects. We introduce a novel, efficient method for modeling the SEDs of blazars by the mean of a convolutional neural network (CNN). In this paper, we trained the CNN on a leptonic model that incorporates synchrotron and inverse Compton emissions, as well as self-consistent electron cooling and pair creation-annihilation processes. The CNN is capable of reproducing the radiative signatures of blazars with high accuracy. This approach significantly reduces the computational time, thereby enabling real-time fitting to multiwavelength data sets. As a demonstration, we used the trained CNN with MultiNest to fit the broadband SEDs of Mrk 421 and 1ES 1959+650, successfully obtaining their parameter posterior distributions. This novel framework for fitting the SEDs of blazars will be further extended to incorporate more sophisticated models based on external Compton and hadronic scenarios, allowing for multimessenger constraints in the analysis. The models will be made publicly available via a web interface at the Markarian Multiwavelength Data Center to facilitate self-consistent modeling of multimessenger data from blazar observations.

Original languageEnglish
Article number71
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume963
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Mar 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

Funding

D.B., H.D.B., and A.P. acknowledge support from the European Research Council via the ERC consolidating grant #773062 (acronym O.M.J.). N.S., S.G., and M.K. acknowledge the support by the Higher Education and Science Committee of the Republic of Armenia, in the context of the research project No 23LCG-1C004.

FundersFunder number
Higher Education and Science Committee of the Republic of Armenia23LCG-1C004
European Commission773062

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