  EGRET (20 MeV to 30 GeV) on board the Compton GRO has observed high-energy
emission from about 40-50 Active Galactic Nuclei. Theoretical models of this
emission based on the upscattering of thermal disk photons by cooling,
relativistic electrons can successfully account for the EGRET observations, but
they predict a considerably greater X-ray flux than that actually observed in a
majority of these sources. This inconsistency may be an indication that the
particles are energized during the Compton scattering process, since the X-ray
emission is produced by the lowest energy electrons, whose density may be
relatively small due to the acceleration. Such a situation may arise as a
result of resistive field generation in electromagnetic acceleration schemes,
which we here explore. A key feature of this model is the assumed existence of
a current associated with the azimuthal component B_phi of the underlying
magnetic field by a slight imbalance in the energy distributions of outwardly
moving, relativistic electrons and protons produced at the disk surface via
shock acceleration. The generation of an electric field (via magnetic field
line reconnection) is thus required to maintain the current in the presence of
a resistivity induced by the radiative drag on the relativistic electrons. We
show that the resulting spectrum can exhibit a significant deficit of X-rays
compared with gamma-rays. In addition, due to the uni-directional flow of the
current associated with B_phi, this model would predict that the electrons are
energized relative to the protons in the outflow only on one side of the disk.
They should be decelerated on the reverse side. As such, we would anticipate
that any given blazar should have a ~50% probability of being gamma-bright,
which appears to be consistent with the observed ratio.
