Hadronic blazar models and correlated X-ray/TeV flares

Abstract

The hypothesis that AGN jets might be the sources of the ultra-high energy cosmic rays has originally motivated the venture of TeV gamma ray astronomy. Surprisingly, after the discovery of TeV emission from blazars the attention has shifted to more traditional explanations which do not involve energetic hadrons, and there is even common believe that a hadronic interpretation is disfavored by observations. It is shown here that this is not the case, and that the currently observed spectra and variability features of blazars can be perfectly understood within hadronic blazar models. I also discuss how hadronic models might be observationally distinguished from common leptonic models, and point out some interesting aspects which could be relevant for the understanding of the differences between blazar classes.