English

Evidence for a second component in the high-energy core emission from Centaurus A?

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2015-06-15 v1

Abstract

We report on an analysis of \fermi data from four year of observations of the nearby radio galaxy Centaurus A (Cen A). The increased photon statistics results in a detection of high-energy (>100>\:100 MeV) γ\gamma-rays up to 50 GeV from the core of Cen A, with a detection significance of about 44σ\sigma. The average gamma-ray spectrum of the core reveals evidence for a possible deviation from a simple power-law. A likelihood analysis with a broken power-law model shows that the photon index becomes harder above Eb4E_b \simeq 4 GeV, changing from Γ1=2.74±0.03\Gamma_1=2.74\pm0.03 below to Γ2=2.09±0.20\Gamma_2=2.09\pm0.20 above. This hardening could be caused by the contribution of an additional high-energy component beyond the common synchrotron-self Compton jet emission. A variability analysis of the light curve with 15-, 30-, and 60-day bins does not provide evidence for variability for any of the components. Indications for a possible variability of the observed flux are found on 45-day time scale, but the statistics do not allow us to make a definite conclusion in this regards. We compare our results with the spectrum reported by H.E.S.S. in the TeV energy range and discuss possible origins for the hardening observed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1302.7173,
  title  = {Evidence for a second component in the high-energy core emission from Centaurus A?},
  author = {N. Sahakyan and R. Yang and F. A. Aharonian and F. M. Rieger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.7173},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

submitted to ApJ Letters

R2 v1 2026-06-21T23:34:20.863Z