Nature of the soft excess in blazar 3C273

Abstract

The multi-epoch data involving 27 observations of the blazar 3C273 obtained over a period of 16 years from June 2000 to June 2016 in the 0.3-10 keV x-ray band is analysed. A single power-law model is fitted to the hard x-ray band while a double power-law model is fitted to the 0.3-10 keV band. The soft x-ray band in 0.3-0.8 keV range is observed to be originating in the jet due to synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) effect while the hard x-ray band is also observed to be originating in the jet through the external Compton (EC) effect. Furthermore, the accretion rate of 3C273 is found to be increasing with time while the jet power has been observed to be decreasing with time.