AGILE detection of the brightest gamma-ray flare ever detected from blazar PKS 1830-211

ATel #12603; Firstname1 LastnaC. Pittori, F. Lucarelli, F. Verrecchia (SSDC and INAF/OAR), A. Bulgarelli, N. Parmiggiani, V. Fioretti (INAF/OAS-Bo), M. Tavani (INAF/IAPS and Univ. Roma Tor Vergata), M. Cardillo, G. Piano, A. Ursi (INAF/IAPS), I. Donnarumma (ASI), S. Vercellone (INAF/OA-Brera), F. Gianotti, M. Trifoglio (INAF/OAS-Bo), A. Giuliani, S. Mereghetti, P. Caraveo, F. Perotti (INAF/IASF-Mi), A. Chen (Wits University), A. Argan, E. Costa, E. Del Monte, Y. Evangelista, M. Feroci, L. Pacciani, P. Soffitta, V. Vittorini (INAF/IAPS), G. Di Cocco, F. Fuschino, M. Galli, C. Labanti (INAF/OAS-Bo), M. Marisaldi (University of Bergen), A. Pellizzoni, M. Pilia, A. Trois (INAF/OA-Cagliari), G. Barbiellini, E. Vallazza (INFN Trieste), F. Longo (Univ. Trieste and INFN Trieste), A. Morselli, P. Picozza (INFN and Univ. Roma Tor Vergata), M. Prest (Univ. dell'Insubria), P. Lipari, D. Zanello (INFN and Univ. Roma Sapienza), P. W. Cattaneo, A. Rappoldi (INFN Pavia), A. Ferrari (Univ. Torino and CIFS), F. Paoletti (East Windsor RSD Hightstown and INAF/IAPS), L. A. Antonelli (INAF/OAR), P. Giommi, L. Salotti, G. Valentini, and F. D'Amico (ASI).me1 (Affil1), Firstname2 Lastname2 (Affil2)...
on 21 Mar 2019; 18:45 UT
Credential Certification: Carlotta Pittori (carlotta.pittori@asdc.asi.it)

Tweet

AGILE is detecting persistent and extraordinary intense gamma-ray flaring activity above 100 MeV from the gravitationally lensed blazar PKS1830-211 at z=2.507 (Lovell et al. 1998, ApJ, 508, L51), located at RA: 18h 33m 39.9s, Dec -21d 03m 40s, J2000 (van Ommen et al., 1995, ApJ, 444, 561). Integrating from 2019-03-19 01:40:00 UTC until 2019-03-21 01:40:00 UTC, a preliminary multi-source maximum likelihood analysis yields a detection at the level of about 10 sigma and a flux F(>100 MeV) above 10 x 10^-6 ph/cm2/s.

This flux value exceeds the already high daily value of about (8.4+/-0.7) x 10^-6 ph/cm2/s reported by Fermi-LAT in ATel #12601. This is the brightest gamma-ray flare on daily timescales ever detected so far from PKS 1830-211, which in the last days became the brightest source of the entire gamma-ray sky. An image of the AGILE 4-day counts map downloaded from the AGILEScience free app dedicated to the AGILE satellite is linked below:

http://www.ssdc.asi.it/images/atel/PKS1830-211_AGILEESC-APP_Screenshot2019-03-211.png

Previous intense and prolonged gamma-ray activity from this source was also reported in the recent ATel's: #12541, #12252, #12136.

The AGILE-GRID detection was obtained while AGILE is observing in spinning mode, surveying a large fraction of the sky each day. The source can be monitored with the public mobile application "AGILEScience" developed by the AGILE Team, available for both Android and iOS devices.

Multifrequency observations of PKS1830-211 are strongly encouraged.