Orateur
Summary
Historically blazar research has tended to concentrate on individual
`outbursts'. In many respects this approach has been successful,
particularly when considering the relationship between the emission at
different wavebands, and the likely emission mechanisms. But does this
approach properly address the underlying reason behind the
variability? In all other accreting systems, eg X-ray binary sources or
non-blazar active galaxies such as Seyfert galaxies, it it now
reasonably well established that the X-ray variability is the result
of a red-noise process. In those cases it is likely that the
variability arises in the accretion disc, eg as accretion rate
fluctuations. These variations propogate inwards and eventually
modulate the X-ray emission region. Could something similar be
happening in blazars? In this talk I consider the possibilities.
