PUBLICATIONS OF THE ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY OF BELGRADE 107, Page 5-12, https://doi.org/10.69646/14sbac01p
PPROCEEDINGS OF THE XIV SERBIAN-BULGARIAN ASTRONOMICAL CONFERENCE, Vrnjačka Banja, Serbia, September 23-27, 2024, Eds. Milan S. Dimitrijević, Evgeni Semkov, Zoran Simić, Goran Damljanović, Momchil Dechev
Published by: Astronomical Observatory, Volgina 7, 11060 Belgrade 38, Serbia

Blazars are relativistic jet-dominated active galactic nuclei, whose emission in the optical region is mostly synchrotron in nature and is consequently polarized. We monitored several objects on night-to-night and long-term time scales in order to study their flux and polarization variability. Our primary goal was to study the variability of the optical polarization of blazars and its relation to the X-ray polarization, which had been measured for a number of objects with the newly introduced IXPE orbital observatory. Among the objects we studied were BL Lacertae, S4 0954+65, S5 0716+714, PG 1553+115, 4C 29.45, OJ 287, Mkn 421, Mkn 501, B2 1308+32, 1ES 1959+65, etc. Our first results suggest the presence of rapid changes in both – polarization degree and position angle in practically all the objects we studied. Such and similar polarization studies can facilitate the detailed modeling of the relativistic jet emission mechanisms.