FERMI Large Area Telescope Observations of Markarian 421: The Missing Piece of its Spectral Energy Distribution

Creators: Abdo, A. A.; Max-Moerbeck, W.; Pavlidou, V.; Pearson, T. J.; Readhead, A.; Richards, J. L.; Stevenson, M.; Fermi-LAT Collaboration; MAGIC Collaboration

Abstract

We report on the γ-ray activity of the high-synchrotron-peaked BL Lacertae object Markarian 421 (Mrk 421) during the first 1.5 years of Fermi operation, from 2008 August 5 to 2010 March 12. We find that the Large Area Telescope (LAT) γ-ray spectrum above 0.3 GeV can be well described by a power-law function with photon index Γ = 1.78 ± 0.02 and average photon flux F(> 0.3 GeV) = (7.23 ± 0.16) × 10^(–8) ph cm^(–2) s^(–1). Over this time period, the Fermi-LAT spectrum above 0.3 GeV was evaluated on seven-day-long time intervals, showing significant variations in the photon flux (up to a factor ~3 from the minimum to the maximum flux) but mild spectral variations. The variability amplitude at X-ray frequencies measured by RXTE/ASM and Swift/BAT is substantially larger than that in γ-rays measured by Fermi-LAT, and these two energy ranges are not significantly correlated. We also present the first results from the 4.5 month long multifrequency campaign on Mrk 421, which included the VLBA, Swift, RXTE, MAGIC, the F-GAMMA, GASP-WEBT, and other collaborations and instruments that provided excellent temporal and energy coverage of the source throughout the entire campaign (2009 January 19 to 2009 June 1). During this campaign, Mrk 421 showed a low activity at all wavebands. The extensive multi-instrument (radio to TeV) data set provides an unprecedented, complete look at the quiescent spectral energy distribution (SED) for this source. The broadband SED was reproduced with a leptonic (one-zone synchrotron self-Compton) and a hadronic model (synchrotron proton blazar). Both frameworks are able to describe the average SED reasonably well, implying comparable jet powers but very different characteristics for the blazar emission site.

Additional Information

© 2011 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2010 November 25; accepted 2011 May 19; published 2011 July 15. The authors of the paper thank the anonymous referee for very well-organized and constructive comments that helped improve the quality and clarity of this publication. The Fermi-LAT Collaboration acknowledges the generous support of a number of agencies and institutes that have supported the Fermi-LAT Collaboration. These include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Energy in the United States, the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/ Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules in France, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Italy, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Japan, and the K. A. Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish National Space Board in Sweden. Additional support for science analysis during the operations phase is gratefully acknowledged from the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Italy and the Centre National d' Études Spatiales in France. The MAGIC Collaboration thanks the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias for the excellent working conditions at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos in La Palma. The support of the German BMBF and MPG, the Italian INFN, the Swiss National Fund SNF, and the Spanish MICINN is gratefully acknowledged. This work was also supported by the Marie Curie program, by the CPAN CSD2007-00042 and MultiDark CSD2009-00064 projects of the Spanish Consolider-Ingenio 2010 programme, by grant DO02-353 of the Bulgarian NSF, by grant 127740 of the Academy of Finland, by the YIP of the Helmholtz Gemeinschaft, by the DFG Cluster of Excellence "Origin and Structure of the Universe," and by the Polish MNiSzW Grant N N203 390834. We acknowledge the use of public data from the Swift and RXTE data archives. The Metsähovi team acknowledges the support from the Academy of Finland for the observing projects (numbers 212656, 210338, among others). This research has made use of data obtained from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), projects BK150, BP143, and BL149 (MOJAVE). The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. The St. PetersburgUniversity team acknowledges support from the Russian RFBR foundation via grant 09-02-00092. AZT-24 observations are made within an agreement between Pulkovo, Rome and Teramo observatories. This research is partly based on observations with the 100mtelescope of the MPIfR (Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie) at Effelsberg, as well as with the Medicina and Noto telescopes operated by INAF–Istituto di Radioastronomia. RATAN-600 observations were supported in part by the RFBR grant 08-02-00545 and the OVRO 40 m program was funded in part by NASA (NNX08AW31G) and the NSF (AST-0808050). The Submillimeter Array is a joint project between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is funded by the Smithsonian Institution and the Academia Sinica. M. Villata organized the optical-to-radio observations by GASP-WEBT as the president of the collaboration. The Abastumani Observatory team acknowledges financial support by the Georgian National Science Foundation through grant GNSF/ST07/4-180.

Attached Files

Published - Abdo2011p15617Astrophys_J.pdf

Files

Abdo2011p15617Astrophys_J.pdf

Files (1.1 MB)

Name	Size	Download all
Abdo2011p15617Astrophys_J.pdf md5:05dfb5de4968ad225d3c70e84b72756e	1.1 MB	Preview Download

Additional details

	All versions	This version
Views	0	0
Downloads	0	0
Data volume	0 Bytes	0 Bytes