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Published January 21, 2015 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

The most powerful flaring activity from the NLSy1 PMN J0948+0022

Abstract

We report on multifrequency observations performed during 2012 December–2013 August of the first narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy detected in γ-rays, PMN J0948+0022 (z = 0.5846). A γ-ray flare was observed by the Large Area Telescope on board Fermi during 2012 December–2013 January, reaching a daily peak flux in the 0.1–100 GeV energy range of (155 ± 31) × 10−8 ph cm−2 s−1 on 2013 January 1, corresponding to an apparent isotropic luminosity of ∼1.5 × 1048 erg s−1. The γ-ray flaring period triggered Swift and Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) observations in addition to radio and optical monitoring by Owens Valley Radio Observatory, Monitoring Of Jets in Active galactic nuclei with VLBA Experiments, and Catalina Real-time Transient Survey. A strong flare was observed in optical, UV, and X-rays on 2012 December 30, quasi-simultaneously to the γ-ray flare, reaching a record flux for this source from optical to γ-rays. VERITAS observations at very high energy (E > 100 GeV) during 2013 January 6–17 resulted in an upper limit of F>0.2 TeV < 4.0 × 10−12 ph cm−2 s−1. We compared the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the flaring state in 2013 January with that of an intermediate state observed in 2011. The two SEDs, modelled as synchrotron emission and an external Compton scattering of seed photons from a dust torus, can be modelled by changing both the electron distribution parameters and the magnetic field.

Additional Information

© 2014 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. Accepted 2014 October 24. Received 2014 October 23. In original form 2014 August 6. First published online November 27, 2014. The Fermi–LAT Collaboration acknowledges generous ongoing support from a number of agencies and institutes that have supported both the development and the operation of the LAT as well as scientific data analysis. 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 VERITAS Collaboration is grateful to Trevor Weekes for his seminal contributions and leadership in the field of VHE gamma-ray astrophysics, which made this study possible. The work of the VERITAS Collaboration is supported by grants from the US Department of Energy Office of Science, the US National Science Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution, by NSERC in Canada, by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI 10/RFP/AST2748) and by the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK. We acknowledge the excellent work of the technical support staff at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory and at the collaborating institutions in the construction and operation of the instrument. We thank the Swift team for making these observations possible, the duty scientists, and science planners. The OVRO 40 m monitoring programme is supported in part by NASA grants NNX08AW31G and NNX11A043G, and NSF grants AST-0808050 and AST-1109911. The CRTS survey is supported by the US National Science Foundation under grants AST-0909182. This research has made use of data from the MOJAVE data base that is maintained by the MOJAVE team (Lister et al. 2009). Data from the Steward Observatory spectropolarimetric monitoring project were used. This programme is supported by Fermi Guest Investigator grants NNX08AW56G, NNX09AU10G, and NNX12AO93G. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. We thank F. Schinzel, S. Digel, P. Bruel, and the referee, Anthony M. Brown, for useful comments and suggestions.

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Published - MNRAS-2015-D'Ammando-2456-67.pdf

Published - MNRAS-2015-D=0027Ammando-2456-67.pdf

Submitted - 1410.7144v1.pdf

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August 20, 2023
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