English

Fast variability of TeV gamma-rays from the radio galaxy M 87

Astrophysics 2008-11-26 v1

Abstract

The detection of fast variations of the TeV (10^12 eV) gamma-ray flux, on time-scales of days, from the nearby radio galaxy M 87 is reported. These variations are ~10 times faster than that observed in any other waveband and imply a very compact emission region with a dimension similar to the Schwarzschild radius of the central black hole. We thus can exclude several other sites and processes of the gamma-ray production. The observations confirm that TeV gamma-rays are emitted by extragalactic sources other than blazars, where jets are not relativistically beamed towards the observer.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0612016,
  title  = {Fast variability of TeV gamma-rays from the radio galaxy M 87},
  author = {HESS Collaboration and F. A. Aharonian},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0612016},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

16 pages, 5 figures, published in Science