Detection of very-high-energy gamma rays from the most distant and gravitationally lensed blazar QSO B0218+357 using the MAGIC telescope system
arXiv:1508.04580
Abstract
QSO B0218+357 is a blazar located at a cosmological redshift of z=0.944. It is gravitationally lensed by a spiral galaxy at a redshift of z=0.68. The blazar and its lens are well studied in the radio through X-ray bands, and several blazar outbursts were detected by Fermi-LAT at energies above 100 MeV. Strong gravitational lensing was invoked to explain the two components appar- ent in the radio and GeV light curves, separated by 10-12 days. In July 2014 another outburst was observed by Fermi-LAT, triggering follow-up observations with the MAGIC telescopes at energies above 100 GeV. The observations were scheduled at the expected time of arrival of the component delayed by the strong gravitational field of the lens, resulting in a firm detection of QSO B0218+357. Using the combined Fermi-LAT and MAGIC data sets, we report on variability of this unique blazar, the most distant among all currently known very high energy sources.
8 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference, 30 July- 6 August, 2015, The Hague, The Netherlands
References in corpus (3)
- The major upgrade of the MAGIC telescopes, Part II: A performance study using observations of the Crab Nebula
- The major upgrade of the MAGIC telescopes, Part I: The hardware improvements and the commissioning of the system
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- Variability of GeV gamma-ray emission in QSO B0218+357 due to microlensing on intermediate size structures
- Pair-Regulated Klein-Nishina Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection with Applications to Blazars and Accreting Black Holes