On the need for simultaneity between X-ray and radio observations in Doppler factor estimates

I. Liodakis, A. Zezas, V. Pavlidou

Published 2015-03-16Version 1

We use archival X-ray and radio VLBA data to calculate inverse Compton Doppler factors for four high-power radio, $\gamma$-loud Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars frequently monitored by the F-GAMMA project. We explore the effect of the non-simultaneity between X-ray and radio observations by calculating Doppler factors for simultaneous and non-simultaneous observations. By comparing the newly re-calculated values from this work and archival values with variability Doppler factors, we show that simultaneous/quasi-simultaneous X-ray and radio observations can provide a reliable estimate of the true Doppler factor in blazar jets. For the particular case of PKS0528+134 we find that a time-difference of up to 1 week provides inverse Compton Doppler factor estimates consistent with the variability Doppler factor of this source at the 19% percent level. In contrast, time differences of more than 30 days between radio and X-ray observations result to discrepancies from 100% to more than a factor of 4.