Properties of Blazar Jets Defined by an Economy of Power

The absolute power of a relativistic black hole jet includes the power in the magnetic field, the leptons, the hadrons, and the radiated photons. A power analysis of a relativistic radio/γ-ray blazar jet leads to bifurcated leptonic synchrotron-Compton (LSC) and leptohadronic synchrotron (LHS) solutions that minimize the total jet power. Higher Doppler factors with increasing peak synchrotron frequency are implied in the LSC model. Strong magnetic fields B ′ ≳ 100 G are found for the LHS model with variability times ≲ 10 3 s , in accord with highly magnetized, reconnection-driven jet models. Proton synchrotron models of ≳ 100 GeV blazar radiation can have sub-Eddington absolute jet powers, but models of dominant GeV radiation in flat spectrum radio quasars require excessive power.