Support ATel At Patreon

[ Previous | Next | ADS ]

Strong very-high-energy gamma-ray flaring activity from FSRQ OP313 detected with the MAGIC telescopes

ATel #17000; David Paneque (Max Planck Institute for Physics), Chitranshi Bakshi (Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics), Axel Arbet-Engels (Max Planck Institute for Physics), Mireia Nievas Rosillo (IAC), Giacomo Bonnoli (INAF), Jorge Otero Santos (INFN Padova) on behalf of the MAGIC collaboration
on 28 Jan 2025; 15:36 UT
Credential Certification: David Paneque (dpaneque@mppmu.mpg.de)

Subjects: Gamma Ray, TeV, VHE, AGN, Blazar

Referred to by ATel #: 17003, 17005, 17016

The MAGIC Collaboration reports the detection of a strong activity in very-high-energy (VHE; E>100 GeV) gamma rays from the flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) OP 313 (R.A. = 197.61943 deg, Dec. = +32.34549 deg, J2000.0, redshift z = 0.997). The preliminary analysis of the 3-hour long MAGIC observation from 2025/01/27 (MJD 60702) yielded a detection of OP 313 with a statistical significance above 30 standard deviations. The estimated flux above 80 GeV reached a level comparable to that of the Crab Nebula.

The MAGIC observations are part of a monitoring campaign triggered by the VHE flaring activity detected on 2025/01/11 (ATel #16977). A bright VHE state has also been recently reported by the VERITAS collaboration on 2025/01/24, with a flux of about 20% C.U. above 150 GeV (ATel #16993). In the optical frequencies, the source currently exhibits a prolonged outburst, as announced by ATel #16972, ATel #16979 and ATel #16991.

The MAGIC telescopes will continue to monitor the source during the next weeks. Follow-up observations (gamma-rays, X-rays, optical, NIR, radio) are strongly encouraged. The MAGIC contact persons for these observations are David Paneque (dpaneque@mppmu.mpg.de), Axel Arbet-Engels (aarbet@mpp.mpg.de), Mireia Nievas Rosillo (mireia.nievas@iac.es), Giacomo Bonnoli (giacomo.bonnoli@inaf.it), Jorge Otero Santos (jorge.otero@pd.infn.it).>

The preliminary analysis has been performed by Chitranshi Bakshi (bakshichitranshi@gmail.com) and Axel Arbet-Engels (aarbet@mpp.mpg.de). 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.