Discovery of Very High Energy Gamma-ray Emission from the Blazar 1ES 1440+122
ATel #2786; Rene A Ong (UCLA) for the VERITAS Collaboration
on 11 Aug 2010; 15:37 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Request For Observations
Credential Certification: Rene Ong (rene@astro.ucla.edu)
Subjects: Gamma Ray, >GeV, TeV, VHE, Request for Observations, AGN, Blazar
The VERITAS collaboration reports the discovery of very high energy (VHE;
E>100 GeV) gamma-ray emission from the blazar 1ES 1440+122. This object
is classified as an intermediate-frequency-peaked BL Lac object by
Nieppola et al. (A&A, 445, 451, 2006) and its redshift, z = 0.162, is
based on the identification of at least three spectral lines (Sbarufatti
et al. 2006, A&A, 457, 35). 1ES 1440+122 may belong to a small cluster
of galaxies (Heidt et al. 1999, A&A, 341, 683) and it may be interacting
with a nearby elliptical galaxy (Sbarufatti et al. 2006). It is also one
of the harder sources (top 10%; 1FGL J1442.8+1158) in the first Fermi-LAT
MeV-GeV catalog (Abdo et al., 2010, ApJS, 188, 405). The blazar was
observed with the VERITAS atmospheric-Cherenkov telescope array for ~50
hours of live time between June 2008 and July 2010. Analysis of these
data has resulted in the detection of the object with a statistical
significance of more than 5 standard deviations. The observed
flux is less than 1% of the flux from the Crab Nebula above 200 GeV and
the observed VHE light curve does not show any evidence for
variability. Multiwavelength observations of 1ES 1440+122 are
encouraged.
