Detection of very-high-energy gamma-ray emission from B2 1420+32 with the MAGIC telescopes
ATel #13412; Razmik Mirzoyan (Max-Planck-Institute for Physics, Munich), on behalf of the MAGIC collaboration
on 21 Jan 2020; 21:03 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Transients
Credential Certification: Giacomo Bonnoli (giacomo.bonnoli@unisi.it)
Subjects: Gamma Ray, TeV, VHE, Blazar
The MAGIC collaboration reports the first detection of very-high-energy (VHE; E>100 GeV) gamma-ray emission from the blazar B2 1420+32 (R.A.=14 22 30.38, Dec.=+32 23 10.44, J2000.0). The object was observed with the MAGIC telescopes for 1.6 hours on 2020/01/21 under weak moonlight. The preliminary analysis of these data resulted in the detection of B2 1420+32 with a statistical significance of more than 13 standard deviations. The VHE flux of this detection was estimated to be about 15 % of the flux from the Crab nebula above 100 GeV.
B2 1420+32, also known as OQ 334, is a blazar located at redshift 0.682 (Hewett & Wild 2010, MNRAS, 405, 2302) and classified as a Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar (Healey et al. 2007, ApJSS, 171, 61). It is the fourth most distant blazar with an observed VHE emission so far.
The MAGIC observations were triggered by flaring activity in high energy gamma-rays, reported by the Fermi-LAT collaboration (ATel #13382) and lasting for a few weeks. The Fermi-LAT team kindly reported a recent enhanced activity from B2 1420+32 to the VHE community.
MAGIC observations on B2 1420+32 will continue during the next days, and multiwavelength observations are encouraged. The MAGIC contact persons for these observations are R. Mirzoyan (Razmik.Mirzoyan@mpp.mpg.de), J. Sitarek (jsitarek@uni.lodz.pl) and G. Bonnoli (giacomo.bonnoli@unisi.it).
MAGIC is a system of two 17m-diameter Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes located at the Canary island of La Palma, Spain, and designed to perform gamma-ray astronomy in the energy range from 50 GeV to greater than 50 TeV.
