MAGIC detects Very High Energy gamma-rays from S5 0716+714
ATel #6999; Razmik Mirzoyan on behalf of the MAGIC collaboration
on 27 Jan 2015; 20:02 UT
Credential Certification: Razmik Mirzoyan (Razmik.Mirzoyan@mpp.mpg.de)
Subjects: Optical, X-ray, Gamma Ray, >GeV, TeV, VHE, AGN
The blazar S5 0716+714 was recently reported to be at exceptionally high optical state (ATel#6902, ATel#6942, ATel#6944, ATel#6953, ATel#6957), which triggered MAGIC observations of the source in very high energy gamma rays (VHE, E>100 GeV). The preliminary analysis of the MAGIC data taken between 2015/01/22 and 2015/01/26 indicates potentially variable VHE flux in the range from 4x10^-11 cm^-2 s^-1 to 7x10^-11 cm^-2 s^-1 above 150GeV.
S5 0716+714 is a blazar with z~0.31 (Nilsson et al. 2008, A&A...487L..29N), which was reported as VHE emitter in 2008 (Anderhub et al. 2009, ApJ, 704, 129). The measured integral flux above 400 GeV was (7.5 +- 2.2) * 10^-12 cm^-2 s^-1. The 2008 detection is the only significant detection of VHE gamma-ray emission prior to observations reported here. Notably, the 2008 MAGIC detection of the source took place during a high optical state, too.
The MAGIC observations were accompanied with simultaneous optical observations with the KVA telescope. The R-band magnitude on 2015/01/26 was 11.84, the lightcurve is available at: http://users.utu.fi/kani/1m/S5_0716+714.html
MAGIC observations on S5 0716+714 will continue for one more night and multiwavelength observations are encouraged. The MAGIC contact persons for these observations are R. Mirzoyan (Razmik.Mirzoyan@mpp.mpg.de) and E. Lindfors (elilin@utu.fi).
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.