First NuSTAR Observations of Mrk 501 within a Radio to TeV Multi-Instrument Campaign

Abstract

We report on simultaneous broadband observations of the TeV-emitting blazar Markarian 501 between 1 April and 10 August 2013, including the first detailed characterization of the synchrotron peak with Swift and NuSTAR. During the campaign, the nearby BL Lac object was observed in both a quiescent and an elevated state. The broadband campaign includes observations with NuSTAR, MAGIC, VERITAS, the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT), Swift X-ray Telescope and UV Optical Telescope, various ground-based optical instruments, including the GASP-WEBT program, as well as radio observations by OVRO, Metsähovi and the F-Gamma consortium. Some of the MAGIC observations were affected by a sand layer from the Saharan desert, and had to be corrected using event-by-event corrections derived with a LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) facility. This is the first time that LIDAR information is used to produce a physics result with Cherenkov Telescope data taken during adverse atmospheric conditions, and hence sets a precedent for the current and future ground-based gamma-ray instruments. The NuSTAR instrument provides unprecedented sensitivity in hard X-rays, showing the source to display a spectral energy distribution between 3 and 79 keV consistent with a log-parabolic spectrum and hard X-ray variability on hour timescales. None (of the four extended NuSTAR observations) shows evidence of the onset of inverse-Compton emission at hard X-ray energies. We apply a single-zone equilibrium synchrotron self-Compton model to five simultaneous broadband spectral energy distributions. We find that the synchrotron self-Compton model can reproduce the observed broadband states through a decrease in the magnetic field strength coinciding with an increase in the luminosity and hardness of the relativistic leptons responsible for the high-energy emission.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (61)

• Maps of Dust IR Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and CMBR Foregrounds
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• Unified Schemes for Radio-Loud Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Mission
• The Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB) Survey of Galactic HI: Final data release of the combined LDS and IAR surveys with improved stray-radiation corrections
• Correcting for the Effects of Interstellar Extinction
• The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) Mission
• Fermi Large Area Telescope Second Source Catalog
• On characterising the variability properties of X-ray light curves from active galaxies
• Photometric Calibration of the Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope
• Leptonic and Hadronic Modeling of Fermi-Detected Blazars
• Extragalactic Background Light Inferred from AEGIS Galaxy SED-type Fractions
• Relativistic Reconnection: an Efficient Source of Non-Thermal Particles
• Blazars in the Fermi Era: The OVRO 40-m Telescope Monitoring Program
• Variable VHE gamma-ray emission from Markarian 501
• Formation of Hard Power-laws in the Energetic Particle Spectra Resulting from Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection
• Log-parabolic spectra and particle acceleration in the BL Lac object Mkn 421: spectral analysis of the complete BeppoSAX wide band X-ray data set
• BeppoSAX Observations of Unprecedented Synchrotron Activity in the BL Lac Object Mkn 501
• The First VERITAS Telescope
• VHE Gamma-Ray Observation of the Crab Nebula and its Pulsar with the MAGIC telescope
• The extent of power-law energy spectra in collisionless relativistic magnetic reconnection in pair plasmas
• Performance of the MAGIC stereo system obtained with Crab Nebula data
• Insights Into the High-Energy Gamma-ray Emission of Markarian 501 from Extensive Multifrequency Observations in the Fermi Era
• Implementation of the Random Forest Method for the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope MAGIC
• Multiwavelength Observations of a Flare from Markarian 501
• X-Ray Spectral Variability Signatures of Flares in BL Lac Objects
• On the Momentum Diffusion of Radiating Ultrarelativistic Electrons in a Turbulent Magnetic Field
• A Study of High Energy Emission from the TeV blazar Mrk 501 during Multiwavelength Observations in 1996
• Swift X-ray Telescope Monitoring of Fermi-LAT Gamma Ray Sources of Interest
• VERITAS Observations of the gamma-Ray Binary LS I +61 303
• Host galaxy subtraction of TeV candidate BL Lacertae objects
• On the origin of the gamma-ray emission from the flaring blazar PKS 1222+216
• The 2009 multiwavelength campaign on Mrk 421: Variability and correlation studies
• Multifrequency monitoring of the blazar 0716+714 during the GASP-WEBT-AGILE campaign of 2007
• Log-parabolic spectra and particle acceleration in blazars - II: The BeppoSAX wide band X-ray spectra of Mkn 501
• Equipartition Gamma-Ray Blazars and the Location of the Gamma-Ray Emission Site in 3C 279
• Spectral Energy Distribution of Markarian 501: Quiescent State vs. Extreme Outburst
• VERITAS Discovery of >200GeV Gamma-ray Emission from the Intermediate-frequency-peaked BL Lac Object W Comae
• Multiwavelength observations of a TeV-Flare from W Comae
• SWIFT observations of TeV BL Lac objects
• Multi-wavelength Observations of the Flaring Gamma-ray Blazar 3C 66A in 2008 October
• Testing the inverse-Compton catastrophe scenario in the intra-day variable blazar S5 0716+71, III. Rapid and correlated flux density variability from radio to sub-mm bands
• Multiwavelength observations of Mkn 501 during the 1997 high state
• Correlation between the TeV and X-ray emission in high--energy peaked BL Lac objects
• The GASP-WEBT monitoring of 3C 454.3 during the 2008 optical-to-radio and gamma-ray outburst
• Gamma-ray blazars near equipartition and the origin of the GeV spectral break in 3C 454.3
• Multiwavelength observations of Mrk 501 in 2008
• Search for an extended VHE gamma-ray emission from Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 with the MAGIC Telescope
• Simultaneous Multiwavelength Observations of Markarian 421 During Outburst
• Discovery of Very High-Energy Gamma-Ray Radiation from the BL Lac 1ES 0806+524
• Simultaneous Multiwavelength observation of Mkn 501 in a low state in 2006
• Long-Term X-Ray and TeV variability of Mrk 501
• Simultaneous Radio to (Sub-) mm-Monitoring of Variability and Spectral Shape Evolution of potential GLAST Blazars
• Discovery of High-energy and Very High Energy Gamma-ray Emission from the Blazar RBS 0413
• Multiwavelength Observations of the Previously Unidentified Blazar RX J0648.7+1516
• Multiwavelength observations of the AGN 1ES 0414+009 with VERITAS, Fermi-LAT, Swift-XRT, and MDM
• Emitting electrons and source activity in Markarian 501
• Long term observations of B2 1215+30 with VERITAS
• First broadband characterization and redshift determination of the VHE blazar MAGIC J2001+439
• Monitoring the radio spectra of selected blazars in the Fermi-GST era. The Effelsberg 100 m telescope covering the cm band
• Particle Acceleration and Plasma Dynamics during Magnetic Reconnection in the Magnetically-dominated Regime

Cited by in corpus (42)

• Multiwavelength Study of Quiescent States of Mrk 421 with Unprecedented Hard X-Ray Coverage Provided by NuSTAR in 2013
• The extreme HBL behaviour of Markarian 501 during 2012
• Probing Acceleration and Turbulence at Relativistic Shocks in Blazar Jets
• Leptonic and Hadronic Radiative Processes in Supermassive-Black-Hole Jets
• Multiband variability studies and novel broadband SED modeling of Mrk 501 in 2009
• X-ray Intraday Variability of Five TeV Blazars with NuSTAR
• Hard X-ray properties of NuSTAR blazars
• Blazar Mrk 501 shows rhythmic oscillations in its $\gamma$-ray emission
• Study of the variable broadband emission of Markarian 501 during the most extreme Swift X-ray activity
• The Great Markarian 421 Flare of February 2010: Multiwavelength variability and correlation studies
• Tests of the Einstein Equivalence Principle using TeV Blazars
• First NuSTAR observations of the BL Lac - type blazar PKS~2155-304: constraints on the jet content and distribution of radiating particles
• First Multi-wavelength Campaign on the Gamma-ray-loud Active Galaxy IC 310
• Multi-messenger characterization of Mrk 501 during historically low X-ray and $\gamma$-ray activity
• The first hard X-ray spectral catalogue of Blazars observed by NuSTAR
• Optical and Radio variability of the Northern VHE gamma-ray emitting BL Lac objects
• X-ray Flux and Spectral Variability of Six TeV Blazars with \textit{NuSTAR}
• The TANAMI Multiwavelength Program: Dynamic SEDs of Southern Blazars
• INTEGRAL view of AGN
• Multi-wavelength study of flaring activity in HBL 1ES 1959+650 during 2015-16
• Insights into the broad-band emission of the TeV blazar Mrk 501 during the first X-ray polarization measurements
• Testing one-zone synchrotron-self-Compton models with spectral energy distributions of Mrk 421
• Extremely rapid x-ray flares of tev blazars in the rxte era
• Intra-night variability of the blazar CTA 102 during its 2012 and 2016 giant outbursts
• Simultaneous observations of the blazar PKS2155-304 from Ultra-Violet to TeV energies
• Multiwavelength study of VHE emission from Markarian 501 using TACTIC observations during April-May, 2012
• Study of correlation between optical flux and polarization variations in BL Lac objects
• Long-term multi-wavelength study of 1ES 0647+250
• Extremely High energy peaked BL Lac nature of the TeV blazar Mrk 501
• Galactic and Extragalactic Sources of Very High Energy Gamma-rays
• Kinetic powers of the relativistic jets in Mrk 421 and Mrk 501
• Multi-wavelength study of the short term TeV flaring activity from the blazar Mrk 501 observed in June 2014
• Estimating the Jet Power from Broadband SED modeling of Mkn 501 for different particle distributions
• Multi-wavelength study of OT 081: broadband modelling of a transitional blazar
• X-Ray Spectral Variability of Thirteen TeV High Energy Peaked Blazars with XMM-Newton
• M@TE - Monitoring at TeV Energies
• NuSTAR View of TeV Blazar Mrk 501
• Evidence of a lepto-hadronic two-zone emission in flare states
• A novel approach to identify blazar emission states using clustering algorithms
• VTSCat - The VERITAS Catalog of Gamma Ray Observations
• Temporary EHBL-like behavior of Markarian 501 during July 2014 VHE flaring
• On the TeV gamma-ray and X-ray correlations exhibited in high-energy peaked BL Lacs: Mrk 501 and 1ES 1959+650