Discovery of Very High Energy Gamma-Rays from the Distant Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar 3C 279 with the MAGIC Telescope

The quasar 3C 279 is one of the best-studied flat spectrum radio quasars. It is located at a comparatively large redshift of z=0.536: E>100 GeV observations of such distant sources were until recently impossible both due to the expected steep energy spectrum and the expected attenuation of the ga...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Teshima, Masahiro, Prandini, Elisa, Bock, Rudolf, Errando, Manel, Kranich, Daniel, Majumdar, Pratik, Mazin, Daniel, Lindfors, Elina, Lorenz, Eckart, Mariotti, Mose, Villi Scalzotto, Wagner, Robert, the MAGIC Collaboration
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 10.09.2007
Subjects
Attenuation
Background radiation
Energy spectra
Gamma rays
Quasars
Red shift
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Summary:The quasar 3C 279 is one of the best-studied flat spectrum radio quasars. It is located at a comparatively large redshift of z=0.536: E>100 GeV observations of such distant sources were until recently impossible both due to the expected steep energy spectrum and the expected attenuation of the gamma-rays by the extragalactic background light. Here we present results on the observation of 3C 279 with the MAGIC telescope in early 2006. We report the detection of a significant very high energy gamma-ray signal in the MAGIC energy range on the observation night of 2006 February 23.
ISSN:2331-8422