Results from MAGIC Observations of Extragalactic Relativistic Sources

Abstract

The Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) experiment is an array of two 17-meter telescopes located in the Canary Island of La Palma that observes the very-high energy (VHE) gamma-ray sky in stereoscopic mode since 2009. MAGIC is distinguished by its low-energy threshold of approximately 50 GeV, which grants the system a unique potential in the study of distant extragalactic sources whose gamma-ray emission is significantly attenuated due to absorption by the extragalactic background light (EBL). The observation of non-thermal gamma rays in the GeV-TeV range from extragalactic sources is a characteristic signature of their relativistic nature and therefore fundamentally important for our understanding of the physics of these objects. Since the beginning of its stereo operation, MAGIC has observed a large number of active galactic nuclei (AGN) of different classes, including several blazars and distant quasars. In this paper we will review some of the most important results of these observations.

7 pages, 2 figures, Observational Review talk given at HEPRO-III Conference, Barcelona, June 2011

References in corpus (16)

• Extragalactic Background Light Inferred from AEGIS Galaxy SED-type Fractions
• Very-High-Energy Gamma Rays from a Distant Quasar: How Transparent Is the Universe?
• MAGIC discovery of VHE Emission from the FSRQ PKS 1222+21
• Fast variability of TeV gamma-rays from the radio galaxy M 87
• VHE Gamma-Ray Observation of the Crab Nebula and its Pulsar with the MAGIC telescope
• Teraelectronvolt Astronomy
• Insights Into the High-Energy Gamma-ray Emission of Markarian 501 from Extensive Multifrequency Observations in the Fermi Era
• New limits on the density of the extragalactic background light in the optical to the far-infrared from the spectra of all known TeV blazars
• Magnetic support of the optical emission line filaments in NGC 1275
• Spine-sheath layer radiative interplay in subparsec-scale jets and the TeV emission from M87
• Rapid variability in TeV blazars: the case of PKS 2155-304
• Spectral Energy Distribution of Markarian 501: Quiescent State vs. Extreme Outburst
• MAGIC observations and multiwavelength properties of the quasar 3C279 in 2007 and 2009
• Discovery of a very high energy gamma-ray signal from the 3C 66A/B region
• A structure and energy dissipation efficiency of relativistic reconfinement shocks
• Observations of the Blazar 3C 66A with the MAGIC Telescopes in Stereoscopic Mode